Nigeria is moving to make drug-related offenders pay the supreme penalty. Just this month, the Senate amended the provisions of the 2004 National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act for the death penalty for drug-related offences. This is a return to the military era in which the death penalty was deployed to curb drug trafficking. It is a harsh provision and should be overturned.
Indeed, it is generating ripples. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime urged the House of Representatives to vote against the bill. The UNODC stressed that the provision, which awaits the concurrence of the Representatives, is counterproductive.
Rightly, the bill shows that the Senate is concerned about the growing spread of drug trafficking in the country, but the proffered legal solution may not solve the problems.
According to Amnesty International, death sentences have not served effectively as a deterrent to the illicit drug trade. In its 2023 report, 325 (37 per cent) out of 833 executions in 20 countries were drug-related cases. Iran (255), Saudi Arabia (57), Singapore (11), and China executed drug traffickers, while Iran (at least 576), Saudi Arabia (196), Egypt (24), and the United States (18) executed criminals for different crimes.
While countries are moving away from the death sentence, Nigeria still has the death penalty in its statutes for violent crimes. The courts issued more than 77 death sentences in 2022, per AI.
Instructively, most state governors are reluctant to sign death warrants. Apart from making the detention of death row inmates prolonged, it compounds the overcrowding in the dilapidated correctional centres.
The Nigeria Correctional Service says there are over 3,400 death row inmates in the country as of 2023. With the governors faced with a moral dilemma, the amendment would aggravate the prison conditions if passed by lawmakers and signed by President Bola Tinubu.
Under the Major-General Muhammadu Buhari military regime (1984-1985), Bartholomew Owoh, Lawal Ojuolape, and Bernard Ogedegbe were executed for possession of hard drugs. The brutal and retroactive public execution led to a public outcry.
Despite the hard stance against drug abuse, use, and trafficking over the years, Nigeria has morphed from a transit route to a major entry point for drug trafficking to Europe, Asia, and South America.
The NDLEA apprehended 50,901 drug offenders, and 46 drug barons, seized 7,590 tonnes of illicit substances, and the courts convicted 9,034 drug peddlers between 2021 and 2024.
NDLEA Chairman, Buba Marwa, said the seizures were worth N800 billion in the three years to December 2023. This is laudable, but the major target should be the drug barons.
Nigeria should wage a decisive war against the illicit drug ecosystem before drug barons begin to undermine the government, like the cartels in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.
Social analysts link violent cultism, armed robbery, kidnapping, Islamic terrorism, and banditry to drug use. With 20.8 million, the 2019 New Frontier Data report put Nigeria as the No.1 country for cannabis use, followed by Canada and the US respectively. The 2019 Global Cannabis Report estimates the annual value of the cannabis trade at $15.3 billion.
According to the US National Institute of Drug Abuse, drug addiction could trigger lung and heart disease, stroke, cancer, dental and mental health conditions (anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and madness), and the destruction of nerve cells. It contributes to reckless behaviour and avoidable accidents.
Therefore, there is an urgent need for robust enlightenment programmes to educate citizens about the implications of drug abuse. The government should collaborate with NGOs and faith-based organisations to embark on campaigns in schools and communities. Government should engage mental health professionals and establish counselling and more rehabilitation centres.
Instead of the death penalty, the Senate should introduce strict penalties to punish offenders.
