Social Democratic Party presidential candidate Adewole Adebayo has called for the death penalty for public officials who steal funds meant for hospitals, roads and other essential services, arguing that such corruption causes far greater loss of life than many violent crimes.
Speaking in an interview with SYMFONI TV, Adebayo said he supports capital punishment “especially [for] corruption.” He compared an official who mismanages hospital money to an armed robber who kills one person.
“A person who shoots, or using a knife to stab one person, kill one person,” he said. “A person who mismanages hospital funds kills thousands.”
He asked why the state would execute an armed robber who shoots someone outside a bank but spare someone who flees with money intended for public hospitals and infrastructure. “So, if you are going to shoot an armed robber who shot one person in front of a bank, why will you not shoot somebody who is running away with the money that is meant to run a hospital, road, and all of that?”
Adebayo framed his position as part of a broader justice principle: those who willingly take human life forfeit their own. He stressed that any application of the death penalty must rest on a fair judiciary that protects the innocent from wrongful conviction. He extended the same standard to terrorism, insurgency, kidnapping and banditry where lives are deliberately taken.
On Nigeria’s insecurity, Adebayo blamed political interference and corruption inside government and the security system. “Insecurity is a government programme,” he said. He described soldiers and police as largely patriotic and capable but constrained by the chain of command. Officers, he argued, obey superior orders even when those orders free suspects.
He illustrated the problem with a hypothetical: police arrest people after a mass shooting at Eagle Square, only for a commissioner of police to order their release. The rank-and-file, he said, would comply because that is how the system is designed. The solution, according to Adebayo, is placing a law-abiding citizen at the apex of political power. “When you put a criminal at the apex, law enforcement can never work.”
He claimed that a genuine order to pursue all criminals without favour would quickly produce reports linking crime to relatives or associates of those in office. Restoring honour and dignity in government, he said, is therefore central to fixing insecurity.
Adebayo also endorsed state police. He argued that any level of government empowered to make and enforce laws, including those carrying the death penalty, should have the authority to police those laws. “If a state can run its assembly, and pass a law that if you kill somebody, you shall be killed; they should be able to apprehend you when you kill somebody.”
He closed by insisting public service is voluntary and must carry strict ethical obligations. Anyone unwilling to meet the code of conduct should stay away. Those who take office and then commit corruption, he said, should face public execution: “your family who came for your inauguration swearing-in will see you tied and shot in public.”
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