Michael Ikenna, a Nigerian to be executed in Vietnam By Firing Squad

Michael Ikenna Nduanya, the Nigerian youngster who was committed to death penalty in Vietnam last week could be eliminated this week through firing squad, according to mounting rumors in the country. If his execution is delayed, then he could be dying through lethal injection as the law will be changing from this July when public execution by firing squad would be ditched for a more dignifying death by lethal injection.

As news of his sentence broke out last week, Nigerians across the world have called on the Nigerian Federal government to make concerted effort to negotiate his life with the communist government of Vietnam. He has been described as one of the victims of Nigeria government’s neglect with millions of youths in the nation wasting away due to unemployment, and thousands more on self-seeking enslavement across the world looking for life lines have met their untimely death.

Hundreds of Nigerian youths are dying every year through many disgraceful means in desperation to escape to other countries of the world for more dignified life.

A London legal practitioner, Alloy Osondu Osuji, speaking to EMNnews last week appealed passionately to President Goodluck Jonathan to save the life of the youngster, who already has leant his lessons the hard way.

Michael’s life could be wasted within weeks unless the Nigerian government intervenes to show its disgust over the sentence, claimed by many to have been racially motivated. The scene of in a firing squad above explains the agony Michael is likely to pass through as his life is being taken with no family in Vietnam to stand for him or even to sympathize with his plight.

Sources in Nigeria had claimed that Michael is an orphan and had made the desperate bid in search of a better life abroad. Hardship and lack of hope had driven him to petty drug trading. Michael was sentenced to death in Vietnam for transporting a small quantity of heroin last week. His Vietnamese wife was also sentences to life imprisonment, raising questions of racism and dislike for foreigners the so called substance claimed to be heroin was caught with the wife who was saaid to be acting on her husband’s behalf.

According to a court official, Michael and his common-law spouse Nguyen Thi Hai Anh, 27, were convicted on Tuesday in Ho Chi Minh City by an Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court. He was sentenced to death on March 22 for illegal transportation of hard drugs. The couple were arrested in December 2009. According to the report, Nduanya had asked his wife to collect about one kilogram of heroin from Cambodia and she was arrested at a Ho Chi Minh City bus depot after returning with the drugs.

Executions are carried out by a firing squad comprised of seven policemen. Six of the men fire rifles while the captain fires a final shot to the head from a handgun if required. The prisoners are blindfolded and tied to stakes at execution grounds in the suburbs of Vietnamese cities. Relatives of the condemned are not informed of the execution beforehand, but are asked to collect the prisoners belongings two or three days afterwards.

There are 29 capital crimes recognised in Vietnamese law, although drug trafficking accounts for the majority of executions there. Nine people were put to death in 2009 and just three in 2008. The Vietnamese legislature voted on the 17th of June 2010 to replace firing squads with lethal injections from July 2011, according to the VietnamNet online news service.

There were 80 death sentences and four executions last year in Vietnam, according to the tally. Most death sentences in the communist country are issued for drug and murder cases. Michael Ikenna Nduanya, 34, confessed that he had visited Vietnam in 2008 and had met Nguyen Thi Hai Anh, 27, from Dak Lak Province and they had since lived together as husband and wife.