President Muhammadu Buhari, during the Armed Forces Remembrance Day celebration, recently, had boasted that his administration had been able to decimate the Boko Haram insurgents and restore Nigeria’s hitherto lost territorial integrity.
He, indeed, hailed the country’s Armed Forces for making the dream possible. There is no doubt that the nation’s armed forces deserve applause for decimating the insurgents, but Nigerians are worried about the rising criminality of kidnapping in the country.
Just last week, three students and five members of staff of the Nigerian Turkish International College, Isheri, Ogun State were kidnapped from their hostel a few days after the Lagos State Government ratified death penalty for kidnappers.
It is not different in Lagos where kidnappers attacked Government Model College, Igbonla, Epe as students were observing early morning prayers in the assembly about two months ago. Before the Epe incident, kidnappers had launched unbridled attacks on Lagosians.
A Lagos septuagenarian monarch, Oniba of Iba, Oba Groiola Oseni, spent about three weeks in the kidnappers’ den.
The upsurge, however, in kidnapping in the last seven months has defied solutions. Although the National Assembly has begun a process for the enactment of a law which would prescribe capital punishment for kidnappers, the bill is still pending before the federal parliament.
Notwithstanding the snail speed of this very important bill before the National Assembly, some states of the federation had approved death penalty to stem the rising wave of kidnapping.
Some of these states, which include Oyo, Kano, Ekiti, Delta, Anambra, Edo, Akwa Ibom and Lagos among others, had enacted stringent laws to tackle the menace of kidnapping.
But while we commend the states for the laws, only Edo State had approved death penalty for kidnappers. It is surprising that Lagos, which appears as kidnappers’ hot spot, will prescribe death for only kidnappers whose victim dies.
The law, which has 20 Sections, prescribes death sentence for kidnappers whose victims die in custody and life sentence for safekeeping of victims.
Specifically, the bill says that any person who kidnaps, abducts, detains, captures or takes another person by any means or trick with intent to demand ransom or do anything against his/her will, commits an offence.
The bill also stipulates life imprisonment for anyone who makes an attempt to kidnap another person. It, however, prescribes sevenyear imprisonment for anyone making false representation to release a kidnapped or abducted person and approved 25-year imprisonment as penalty for anyone found guilty of threatening to kidnap another person through phone call, e-mail, text message or any other means of communication.
These stipulations are still not enough to deter masterminds and perpetrators of this heinous crime without the political will to enforce the law.
The beauty of the laws by various state governments is not in its enactment, but enforcement and implementation.
Will the states have the political will to sign death warrant hanging on convicts? This is why the Edo State Government deserves commendation for its resolute to enforce capital punishment even though death penalty had not deterred capital offences from being committed.
There are about 1,750 inmates on death row across the country as at September last year arising from 1,071 death sentences imposed by the courts. We must look beyond stringent laws to curb incessant kidnappings and dwell more on the political will to stem the tide of kidnapping in the country.
This is also why the Federal Government must rise to the occasion and provide logistics and strategies in terms of adequately equipping various security agencies in order to live up to expectations by arresting the trend of kidnapping.
The Federal Government must also provide logistics to beef up security system, especially along waterways, as there is urgent need for a coordinated effort to deal with kidnapping in the country. Government, at all levels, must also strive hard to address the root causes of criminality in the society.
Unemployment has been identified as a major factor responsible for kidnapping. Government must provide opportunities for its teeming unemployed population.
This, in no small measure, will reduce this criminality. We also emphasised that those found culpable in kidnap cases must not be spared; the full weight of the law must be brought on the criminals. Doing this will send a clear message to the would-be kidnappers.
