The Senate has resolved to make death penalty as the punishment for kidnappers to serve as deterrence to others contemplating the crime.
The decision aimed at curbing the menace of kidnapping in Nigeria was taken on Wednesday following a proposition by Senator Adamu Aliero (APC, Kebbi) as addition to the report of Senate Joint Committees on Police Affairs, National Security and Intelligence on the “unfortunate reoccurrence of kidnapping and hostage taking.”
Most senators agreed with the proposition with Sen. Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi) specifically saying that the death penalty should be implemented through firing squad or hanging.
Sen. Ben Bruce (PDP, Bayelsa) in his contribution said such a deterrent was necessary because kidnappers often consume drugs to benumb their senses during the crime while Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu said payment of ransoms by relatives of kidnap victims was a factor that encouraged the heinous act.
According to Ekweremadu, “just recently one of my relations was kidnapped, these are normal human beings who are sometimes looking for money and also afraid of security agencies.
“We have encouraged this type of kidnapping because we panic and pay money most times: most times our people are reluctant to delay or endure the inconvenience or the hardship and then they quickly negotiate. If we want to discourage this kind of kidnappings, the only way forward is to insist that you will not pay.”
Sen. Bruce blamed lack of publicized trials of kidnap suspects and subsequent conviction as a reason for the prevalence of the crime. He said: “One of the biggest problems we have is that we have no deterrent: we don’t put people on trial, we don’t publicize the trial so people can see the consequence of kidnapping.
“One reason why people are not scared of committing crime is the issue of drugs, when you are on drugs you don’t think: you don’t think of the consequences of your action at that time. We must do something to have less criminals and the only way to do that is to deal with the social issues, we need to deal with the drug problem.”
In debating the report of the joint committee, the senate adopted its recommendation that the funding of security agencies be given priority while more efforts should be made to create employment opportunities to the teeming unemployed youths in the country.
The upper chamber also resolved that the security agencies should embark on training and retraining of their personnel and that state governments should be encouraged to enact laws to aid prosecution of kidnappers.
The need for more vigorous information sharing among security agencies was advocated.
While presenting the report of the Joint Committee earlier, Sen. Abu Ibrahim (APC Katsina) said kidnapping which started in some parts of the country had now become a nation-wide menace.
He noted that the security operatives knew the mode of operation of the kidnappers but were usually hampered by unavailability of funds and undue rivalry between security agencies resulting in lack of synergy.ORDERPAPER.NG
