Boko has always promised that when the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) takes over the government they will use a human rights-centred approach. Furthermore, he promised to abolish the death penalty and his argument has always been that capital punishment doesn't serve as a deterrent to the rise in murder cases in Botswana. His challenge is that there is a general consensus that the death penalty should continue as reflected in the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Review of the Constitution of Botswana, commissioned by former president Mokgweetsi Masisi. Recommendations made through the Commission suggested that the death penalty must continue. Nonetheless, Ditshwanelo, a human rights group has over the years called for the abolition of the death penalty.
Death penalty in most cases has been imposed upon the conviction for murder without extenuating circumstances and is often carried out by hanging. Over the years Boko, who is also a human rights lawyer, has been pushing to abolish the death penalty in Botswana's legal system. When opposing the death penalty in the courts, he didn't hesitate to stand firmly against it whilst representing Brandon Sampson in 2008, a Motswana sentenced to death together with his South African counterpart Michael Molefhe, after they killed two Zimbabwean men. Boko said he was embarking on a campaign that might lead to the abolition of the death penalty and at the time he was ready to fight the matter in courts. In 2009, he also told a panel discussion at the University of Botswana (UB) that Jesus would have lived longer if there had been no death penalty. "If we didn't have the death penalty, Jesus would have lived much longer than the 33 years that he did," he said at the discussion whose topic was 'To Kill Or Not To Kill – Capital Punishment In Botswana'. He explained that the African Charter on Human Rights declares human life sacrosanct.
