The Senate on Wednesday began debate on a landmark bill seeking to classify kidnapping and hostage-taking as acts of terrorism and to prescribe the death penalty for offenders.
This is just as lawmakers declared that the crime has evolved into a nationwide existential threat requiring the strongest possible legal response.
The Senate last week resolves to amend the Terrorism Act to modify its provisions on sanctions for kidnapping in a bid to address rising incidents across the country.
Entitled Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) (Amendment) Bill, it was sponsored by Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele and 108 other members of the Senate. It was read for the first time on November 27.
Leading debate on the general principles of the bill, Bamidele said the amendment was “a direct response to one of the gravest security challenges threatening the lives, livelihoods, and future of our people.”
He lamented that kidnapping which was once isolated, has transformed into “well-coordinated, commercialised, and highly militarised acts of violence, perpetrated by organised criminal groups.”
According to him, “there is hardly any region of our country that no kidnapping cases are reported,” a situation that has “instilled widespread fear in communities, undermined national economic activities and agricultural output, interrupted children’s education, bankrupted families due to ransom payments, and claimed countless innocent lives.”
Bamidele outlined the bill’s three primary objectives – Classifying kidnapping as terrorism by designating kidnapping and hostage-taking as terrorist acts, and thereby enabling security agencies to deploy broader operational powers, intelligence tools, and prosecutorial mechanisms available under counter-terrorism laws.
It also proposes the death sentence without option of fine or alternative punishment, which Bamidele described as a necessary deterrent due to the “catastrophic impact” of kidnapping on national security and public well-being.
Thirdly, he added that by moving kidnapping under terrorism legislation, agencies will be empowered to conduct asset tracing and forfeiture, intelligence-led operations, coordinated inter-agency action, swift pre-trial procedures and disruption of funding and logistics chains.
The Senate Leader argued that the brutality and organisation of kidnapping syndicates now “carry all the characteristics of terrorism,” making it untenable to treat them as ordinary criminal offences.
“By enacting this legislation, we will be fulfilling our moral, constitutional, and legislative duties to protect the lives of Nigerians,” he declared.
Contributing to the debate on the general principles of the bill, former Edo State governor, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, strongly backed the bill, saying it would eliminate loopholes previously exploited under the terrorism framework.
“This bill will also cure the mischief in the Terrorism Act,” he said. “My understanding of this reinforcement is that this digression will not be available to anybody, whether in the presidency or in the military.”
Oshiomhole invoked religious teachings to justify the death penalty, insisting, “Even in the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran, he who has killed has no right to life.”
Similarly, former Abia Governor, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, supported the amendment, saying kidnapping has become so widespread that “there is no local government and village that you won’t find these kidnappers.”
Kalu also called for accomplices, including informants, owners of properties linked to the crime, lawyers, and others who aid kidnappers should also face the same fate.
While acknowledging his Christian faith’s objection to capital punishment, he said he supports the bill because “Nigerians have suffered death in the hands of kidnappers. This must stop. Young girls and women are raped because they are kidnapped, and many businesses have gone bankruptcy because of ransom payment.”
Adding to the debate, Senate Minority Leader, Abba Moro, lamented that “kidnapping has become a business.” He urged swift passage of the bill, describing kidnapping as a criminal enterprise driven by profit.
“Kidnapping has become a business because negotiations take place and money is paid, so the kidnappers become emboldened,” Moro said, while advising that the root causes of kidnapping should also be tackled while strengthening punitive measures.
In his remarks, Senator Victor Umeh called stated that banks and other facilitators must be held liable for the crime as well, adding that the violence associated with kidnapping “will irritate every right-thinking person to support this bill.”
Umeh argued that the legislation must go beyond the perpetrators and address the financial networks that sustain the crime.
“We need to go deep to the people who facilitate this business… financial institutions too are part of it,” he said.
“They don’t give any lead to the ransom collectors whose accounts were credited… our laws forbid banks to be involved in illicit transactions.”
“There is no difference between a sponsor and a kidnapper. They are all the same.”
Umeh stressed that that for the provisions of the bill to be achieved, “There must be the political will to implement this punishment so that the deterrent we are pursuing will be effective.”
In his remarks, Senate President Godswill Akpabio insisted that the bill must not overlook the financiers and facilitators of kidnapping.
“I hope in the course of the public hearing, we will capture the sponsors of the kidnappers and the appropriate sanctions that should be given to them,” he said.
Bringing the debate to a close, he reminded his colleagues that the bill “is a resolution of the Senate, so we don’t really have to debate it. What we have to do is fast-track it.”
It was subsequently referred to the Committees on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters; National Security and Intelligence; and Interior for further legislative work. The report is expected in two weeks.
