Lagos State Assembly debates bill to punish kidnappers with the death sentence

LAGOS State government intends to introduce a new law that will punish kidnapping with the death penalty as part of a clampdown on what has become a growing menace across the country.

 

Over recent years, kidnapping has become a booming industry in Nigeria, with the relatives of public figures abducted by armed hoodlums in exchange for cash. Of late, the menace has got worse with boarding schools attacked and the kidnappers refusing to release abducted pupils until the authorities pay them hefty sums.

 

Already, Edo, Ogun and Anambra State have imposed the death sentence on kidnappers in a bid to address the problem and Lagos State is debating a bill to that effect too. Under a private member bill sponsored by the speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Honourable Mudashiru Obasa, any person, who kidnaps, abducts, details or captures or takes another person by any means or tricks him or her with intent to demand ransom or do anything against his/her will commits an offence and liable on conviction to death sentence.

 

Titled a law to provide for the prohibition of the act of kidnapping and for other connected purposes, the bill went through a public hearing on Friday at the Lateef Jakande Hall within the assembly premises. Attempting to kidnap was also criminalised under the bill and it was suggested that such a person would be committed to life imprisonment.

 

Also, the bill is against false representation to release a kidnapped or abducted person under Section 4 and this attracts seven years imprisonment. Furthermore, the bill provides that any person, who knowingly or wilfully allows his house to be used for kidnapping is guilty of an offence under the law and liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment of 14 years without an option of fine.

 

Legal practitioner, Richard Komolafe from the United Action for Change, who spoke at the stakeholders’ meeting, commended the bill but said that death sentence, was no longer fashionable all over the world.

 

In his keynote address, the speaker, Hon Obasa, condemned the trend of kidnapping in the state, stressing that the act should be punished by the death penalty. Represented by the majority leader of the House, Hon Sani Agunbiade, Hon Obasa said that those who engaged in the crime were not fit to live.