Veteran Nollywood actor, Nkem Owoh, has shared how the killing of his elder brother by a military firing squad remains one of the most painful experiences of his life. His brother, Bartholomew Owoh, was executed on April 10, 1985, under the military government led by General Muhammadu Buhari.
Bartholomew was among three young men executed for drug-related crimes, even though the death penalty was not part of the law at the time they committed the offences. In an interview on Arise TV, Nkem Owoh said he cried at work the day it happened and was angry that the government brought a new law and backdated it to punish people unfairly.
He described the move as cruel and questioned why a new decree would be applied to people who committed their crimes before the law even existed. “I was so bitter,” he said. “How can you punish people for something that wasn’t a death sentence when it happened?”
