Informdailynews Editorial Team
As Nigeria continues to bleed under the weight of unrelenting kidnappings, banditry and terrorist incursions, the Senate’s latest move to impose the death penalty for kidnapping under an amended Terrorism (Prevention) Act signals a nation desperate for solutions. The resolve of lawmakers to take a firmer stance is understandable. The rising insecurity has not only shattered communities and livelihoods — it has dragged Nigeria’s global image to its lowest point in decades.
However, if the nation must revisit capital punishment as a deterrent, then the approach must not be vague, elastic, or susceptible to endless judicial delays. If death penalty proposals are to be included in the amended Act, a strict caveat must follow: convictions for kidnapping and terrorism must result in execution within 60 to 90 days, after all legal appeals have been fully exhausted.
This is not a call for brutality. It is a call for certainty, speed, and deterrence in a country where justice often limps behind crime, and where convicted kidnappers sometimes return to society emboldened. A punishment that lingers indefinitely — or is never carried out — loses all meaning. It neither deters the eager nor reforms the guilty. Worse still, it signals a weak state.
Today, kidnapping has evolved from crime to enterprise. A dark, sophisticated, well-financed economy now thrives across forests and highways, emboldened by a justice system that appears too slow, too overwhelmed, and too unpredictable to inspire fear. Therefore, any constitutional amendment without a time-bound mechanism will amount to merely adding another clause to Nigeria’s swollen statutes, without delivering real consequences.
The Senate has voiced its urgency: dissolve committees, summon service chiefs, demand investigations, strengthen intelligence sharing, and overhaul security architecture. These are noble steps. But the backbone of deterrence lies in sure and swift punishment. If a kidnapper knows the state will spend years debating his fate, the crime remains attractive. If he knows that judgment — once passed — is irreversible and imminent, the story changes.
Countries that have successfully confronted violent crime applied speed, clarity, and uncompromising execution of the law. Nigeria must not tremble at difficult decisions when innocent schoolchildren, commuters, farmers and families tremble daily in abduction camps.
Still, safeguards must be built:
watertight investigations;
uncompromised prosecution;
transparent judicial review;
and guaranteed access to appeal — but all within a defined window that ends with certainty, not ambiguity.
The dignity of a nation is tied to its ability to protect life. Right now, Nigeria is hemorrhaging dignity every time citizens are snatched on highways, farms, streets, schools and even homes. The world is watching a country struggling to police its territory.
If the Senate’s proposal is truly aimed at deterrence, then a 60–90 day mandatory execution window after the exhaustion of appeals must become part of the amendment. Anything less is cosmetic. Anything slower is ineffective. Anything weaker is dangerous.
Nigeria has reached the brink. The time for half measures is over. Only bold, uncompromising justice — delivered swiftly and fairly — can restore faith, rebuild security, and signal to kidnappers and terrorists that the business is no longer lucrative, no longer safe, and no longer permitted on Nigerian soil.
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