Veteran Nollywood actor Nkem Owoh has opened up about one of the most painful chapters of his life — the execution of his older brother, Bartholomew Owoh, by the military regime of General Muhammadu Buhari in 1985.
Bartholomew was among three young Nigerians — alongside Lawal Ojuolape and Bernard Ogedengbe — who were executed by firing squad on April 10, 1985, for drug-related offences.
What makes the case even more tragic is that the offences were not originally punishable by death at the time they were committed. The regime had retroactively applied a new decree, sentencing them under a law that did not exist when the crimes occurred.
Speaking in an interview with Arise Television on Thursday, April 10, 2025 — exactly 40 years after the execution — Nkem Owoh recalled the trauma he felt while working at Anambra Television:
“I was so furious that I was shedding tears along the corridors.”
He criticized the military government for backdating the law just to justify the executions:
“Why would it be shifted back to include people who didn’t commit the offence before the decree?”
Owoh’s emotional account highlights a painful moment in Nigeria’s history — a time when military decrees ruled without mercy, and justice was too often sacrificed on the altar of power.
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