Mixed reactions trail senate’s endorsement of death penalty for kidnappers
The Senate’s recent move to adopt the death penalty as punishment for bandits and kidnappers, has been met with dissenting voices, particularly from human rights advocates, legal experts and some community leaders, who have argued that that would not solve the problem of banditry and kidnapping in the country.
Nigeria has been embroiled in various kinds of insecurity, including banditry and kidnapping, which has led to huge economic losses as well as human lives.
A couple of days ago, the Senate passed for second reading a bill seeking to designate kidnapping and hostage-taking as acts of terrorism, impose death penalty on offenders and empower the security agencies to trace and forfeit assets linked to the crime.
The bill, titled, Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Amendment Bill, 2025 (SB.969), was sponsored by the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, representing Ekiti Central, and co-sponsored by 108 other senators.
Leading the debate, Bamidele said the amendment was a direct legislative response to one of Nigeria’s most devastating security threats.
He noted that kidnapping had transformed from isolated acts into a ‘commercialised, militarised and well-coordinated national menace,’ that has claimed thousands of lives, crippled businesses, rendered families bankrupt and stretched security agencies beyond capacity.
“The bill seeks to designate kidnapping and hostage-taking as acts of terrorism, prescribe the death penalty without option of fine and empower security agencies to dismantle kidnapping networks through asset tracing, forfeiture, intelligence-led operations and stronger inter-agency coordination,” he explained.
He added that the terror designation would give law enforcement broader prosecutorial powers under the counter-terrorism frameworks, enabling faster pre-trial procedures and the disruption of funding chains that feed the criminal enterprise.
