ABUJA – By Olusegun Lawrence Nigeria’s Senate on Wednesday agreed to make death penalty as the punishment for kidnappers.
The resolution was adopted following a proposition by Senator Adamu Aliero (APC, Kebbi).
Aliero made the proposition after the presentation of the report of Senate Joint Committees on Police Affairs, National Security and Intelligence on the “unfortunate reoccurrence of kidnapping and hostage taking.”
Presenting the report, the Chairman of the committee, Senator Abu Ibrahim, said “the sum of N842,500,000, was reportedly demanded as ransom by kidnappers. Some victims’ family/employers purportedly paid a sum total of, N28 million.
”Settlement by foreigners is often behind the scene, as family usually go against advice for fear that force may be applied in rescuing the victim and thereby endangering their lives.
“Recent example is the release of five Polish nationals from costal waters of Rivers and Bayelsa few days ago.
“In November, 2015, a total of 117 incidents were recorded involving 151 victims spread across 23 states .”
The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu said, “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.”
Contributing, Senator Ben Muray Bruce, had this to say, “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.”
The Senate also adopted recommendation of the committee on adequate funding of the security agencies in the country because the practice of envelop budget for security agencies have proved ineffective.
