Sani Yakubu Rodi (b. 1975 or 1981, according to conflicting reports) was the first prisoner to be executed under state-level

Sharia law Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on scriptures of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' refers to immutable, inta ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. He was hanged in a prison in

Katsina State Katsina State ( ; 𞤤𞤫𞤴𞤣𞤭 𞤳𞤢𞥁𞤭𞤲𞤢) is a state in the northwestern geopolitical zone of Nigeria. It is bordered to the west by Zamfara State, to the east by Kano and Jigawa states, and to the south by Kaduna St ...

on January 3, 2002, for the 2001 fatal stabbing of a woman and her two children; however, he did not have legal representation at his trial (opting for self-defense), and had pleaded not guilty at his initial hearing, but had changed to a guilty plea at a later hearing, after which he was sentenced to death by

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

.Nigeria: First Execution under Sharia Condemned
by

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

, New York, January 8, 2002 , Rodi's execution is the first and only

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...

to have taken place under

sharia in Nigeria In Nigeria, Sharia has been instituted as a main body of civil and criminal law in twelve Muslim-majority states since 1999, when then-Zamfara State governor Ahmad Sani Yerima began the push for the institution of Sharia at the state level o ...

References

Nigerian people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by Nigeria 21st-century executions by Nigeria Executed Nigerian people People executed by Nigeria by hanging People executed for murder 2002 deaths Year of birth missing {{nigeria-bio-stub