Ghana's parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty, joining a long list of African countries that have done so in recent years, BBC reports.
The bill to amend the Criminal Offences Act was put forward by MP Francis-Xavier Sosu and had the backing of the parliament's Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, the report said.
"Abolishing the death penalty shows that we are determined as a society not to be inhumane, uncivil, closed, retrogressive and dark," Sosu was quoted as saying by BBC.
The country currently has 170 men and six women on death row, whose sentences will now be replaced by life imprisonment. The last execution took place in 1993.
Execution has been the mandatory sentence for murder in Ghana.
Opinion surveys suggest that most Ghanaians approve abolition, the report noted.