By Wisdom Patrick, Lagos

Amnesty International has said that some 1000 people were on death row in Nigeria alone and could be executed anytime from now.

The organization also said it was pushing for the rights of Gay in Nigeria and Africa.

The Deputy Director for Africa, Amnesty International, Lucy Freeman, disclosed this to Political Economist in a  telephone chat in Lagos.

She added also that some 56 people were reportedly sentenced to death by Nigerian courts last year alone.

Freeman said Amnesty International has frowned at the last year execution of four convicts in Benin City, the Edo State capital, after the State Governor signed their warrant.

According to her, ” that Monday was truly a dark day for human rights in Nigeria.”

She stated further that the last time Nigeria carried out execution was in 2006.

Earlier, Lucy Freeman said Governments in Africa are everyday bringing out new laws and draconian penalties to make it sure and clear that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are criminals, the report says.

Some of African leaders state that homosexuality is un-African which made the western world threaten to withdraw from any country which did not give gay people there right of freedom to be and marry. However, Amnesty said US religious groups “actively fund and promote homophobia in Africa”, while many of the laws were inherited from the colonial era.

Homosexual acts are still a crime in 38 sub-Saharan African countries, the right group had earlier said in a report titled “Making Love a Crime: Criminalisation of same-sex conduct in sub-Saharan Africa”.

There is no specific legislation outlawing homosexual acts in 12 African countries, mostly former French colonies, while gay rights are recognised in South Africa. In the last five years, South Sudan, Nigeria, Uganda and Burundi have introduced new laws criminalising same-sex relations, it says.

“These poisonous laws must be repealed and the human rights of all Africans upheld,” Amnesty said.

“In some African countries political leaders target sexual orientation issues to distract attention from their overall human rights records, often marked by rampant discrimination and violence against women, corruption and lack of media freedoms,” it added.

In South Africa, at least seven people, five of them lesbians, were murdered between June and November 2012 in what appears to have been targeted violence related to their sexual orientation or gender identity, the report says.