Edo State Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo’s June vow to sign the death warrants of convicted kidnappers has returned to the spotlight following the sentencing of four persons to death by the Edo State Special Criminal Court.
The court on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, sentenced Marvellous Isaac, Wisdom Michael, Rufus Emete Michael and Gift Raphael to death over their involvement in the broad-daylight kidnapping of a woman at the Vegetable Market along Airport Road, Benin City.
The landmark judgment has brought renewed attention to the governor’s declaration in June that he would sign the death warrant of any kidnapper or criminal sentenced to death in Edo State and have such convicts publicly executed.
Okpebholo made the vow on June 18, 2026, during a visit to the Edo State Police Command headquarters in Benin City, where he inspected suspects arrested over the Vegetable Market kidnapping.
Among the suspects was 32-year-old Marvellous Isaac, whose gang was accused of abducting Precious Ofure in broad daylight at the popular market.
Police reportedly recovered a red Lexus RX 350 marked EKP 848 AE, a pump-action shotgun, two live cartridges, N2.2 million allegedly paid as ransom and a motorcycle from Isaac and his associates.
At the time, Okpebholo said his administration would not allow kidnappers to operate freely in the State and announced plans for a special court to prosecute kidnappers and cultists.
“I will sign the death warrant. They will be publicly executed,” the governor declared in June.
Three months after that declaration, the newly established Edo State Special Criminal Court has handed down death sentences to four defendants linked to the case.
Justice Aigbona Momodu convicted the defendants on various counts arising from an 11-count charge bordering on kidnapping, conspiracy, armed robbery, cultism and unlawful possession of firearms.
Isaac received seven years’ imprisonment on one count, death sentences on several kidnapping-related counts, 10 years on another count and life imprisonment on the final count.
Michael, Emete Michael and Raphael were similarly handed death sentences on specified counts, alongside additional prison terms. The court ordered that the applicable death sentences be carried out by hanging or lethal injection.
The case followed the June 14, 2026 abduction of the woman at the Vegetable Market, an incident that triggered a police investigation and subsequently became one of the first major cases prosecuted before the Edo State Special Criminal Court.
The court was established to fast-track the prosecution of kidnapping, cultism and other violent-crime cases in the state.
With the four defendants now sentenced to death, attention has shifted to the next legal steps in the case and whether the governor will eventually act on the position he announced in June.
However, the death sentences do not automatically translate into immediate execution.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olayiwola Afolabi, has urged the governor to allow the convicts to exhaust the period provided by law for an appeal before any execution can take place.
The development therefore places Okpebholo’s June declaration against a fresh legal reality: the governor’s earlier vow has now been followed by the first death sentences handed down by Edo’s specialised criminal court in a kidnapping case.
