ABUJA, Nov 15: Nigeria’s president pardoned on Friday a 57-year old convicted armed robber who had been awaiting the hangman’s noose for more than two decades, an official said.

“President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on Friday pardoned a man who has been on death row for the past 22 years,” presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said in a statement.

Ibrahim Aliyu had been in prison for 25 years in a maximum security jail in Lagos.

His pardon came less than a month after rights watchdog Amnesty International criticised Nigeria’s criminal justice system for major failings and called for a moratorium on capital punishment.

Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with 140 million people, has 725 men and 11 women on death row, according to Amnesty International figures published.—AFP