An Anti-Terrorism Amendment Bill currently at the National Assembly not only classifies kidnapping as a form of terrorism but also prescribes death penalty for offenders when duly tried and found culpable of this heinous crime. This development at a time when Justice systems and human rights advocacy across the world are steadily gravitating away from the atavistic inclinations to capital punishment on the plank of ‘An eye for an eye’ requires a closer scrutiny. Laws are needed for peaceful organisation of any society. But laws on their own become futile efforts when there are no structures for effective implementation. Current security and judicial system and structures are yet to show convincing readiness to frontally confront and resolve issues of kidnappings and general insecurity across the country.
Nigeria’s security failings have therefore been more attributable to political insincerity and lack of willpower on the part of government to decisively deal with the issues as they play out rather than the absence of enabling laws. Often has it been said that there are some human rights that are so deep and fundamental that we can’t negotiate them away. These are basic human rights that every human being deserves and should have.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that these are rights that can’t be negotiated. They are the rights not to be tortured and not to be killed. Kidnappers have on their own, made a despicable but thriving business out of abducting, torturing and in some cases killing of victims when ransom is delayed in coming. Many Nigerians have gone through harrowing purgatorial experiences in the hands of these kidnappers who are hardly apprehended much less tried and sentenced under the law. The moral dilemma in the current legislative debacle is whether they should be allowed to enjoy the benefits of these fundamental human rights which they consciously and violently violated in the circumstances of their unleashing terror on their victims.
Their operations have become the more complex with the ethnic, regional, religious nuances and in some cases political sympathies woven around their criminal enterprise. This and the resurgence of insurgency constitute part of the reasons Nigeria has been designated a country of particular concern by the Trump administration. In response, President Tinubu led Federal Government has declared a state of emergency on security nationwide.
This may not necessarily be a confirmation that the government of the day has suddenly realised its primary responsibility of securing lives and property but is rather linked to what the Senate President Gods will Akpabio described most undiplomatically as ‘Trump on our neck’.
The pervasive frequency and ease of their operation now borders on outright disregard for the government of the day just as the impunity displayed and acute lawlessness exhibited are indicative of a fast failing State.
The increasing incidents of kidnappings and mass abductions across the country and how these have transformed into a coordinated, commercialised and militarised acts of violent enterprise have constituted major reason for national security concern. Their activities appear to have been further emboldened by the weakness of the existing security architecture and judicial system in curbing their violent operations and mayhem being unleashed on the citizenry. This disturbing scenario has gone a long way in painting Nigeria as one of the unsafest , some will say deadliest, countries in the world to either live in or do business. In spite of the statistics the Federal Government is churning out through the NBS indicative of a performing economy on a steady recovery and growth trajectory, investors still find it difficult to be convinced that conventional and legitimate businesses can break even in present day Nigerian business environment densely infested with high level, coordinated criminality and celebrated banditry.
Even the more worrisome is the fact that the state has remained essentially reactive, sometimes docile, responding lamely after tragedy rather than anticipating and preventing it. We are also grappling with the absence of a coherent intelligence architecture that can integrate local knowledge, modern detection tools, financial tracking capabilities, and regional cooperation to achieve a safer Nigeria.
Communities have now come to see insecurity as a field in which violent actors enjoy more leverage than legitimate institutions. Some communities have been known to pay regular security levies to bandits, insurgents and kidnappers as part of the pact or condition for them to cultivate their farms or go to their markets.
Government acknowledges this, calls it extortion but has not done much to provide security to those being extorted. To the affected communities the State appears to have failed in its primary responsibility. This perception has undermined faith in the government and encouraged criminals to boldly interpret restraint on the part of government as weakness.
Last week, rather interestingly, Governors of the 19 States in northern Nigeria met in Kaduna and resolved that a centralised police structure can no longer serve the security interest of a vast country of about 200 million citizens. They pointed out that some vast area in the country appears to be ungoverned, reiterating the urgent need of a State Police structure for enhanced security. They also maintained that there exists a nexus between growing insecurity and activities of illegal miners in parts of the country. Current state of insecurity makes Nigeria bleed on all fronts. It therefore does not make sense for any geo-political zone or region to continue to play the ostrich.
In addition to the renewed clamour for State Police, it is hoped that the coming in of Gen Chris Musa, a career security expert as minister of Defense will help in putting in place a command restructuring that will support officers in the field rather than tying their hands through political considerations, insider betrayals, regional compromises and high powered negotiations for ransom.
Nigeria needs to rebuild public trust. Citizens need to see convincing reasons to believe that the government is fighting for them and so need to cooperate effectively with security agencies. Government should be seen as being in place to protect the interest of the people and not for self aggrandizement.
When government fails to serve the interest of the citizens there is the tendency to begin to see bandits and insurgents as some form of ‘freedom fighters’ instead of the criminal elements which they truly are.
A key target of any legal provision is usually to act as deterrent to those who might begin to see some attractions in illegality and criminality. The legal dilemma before the National Assembly is whether to extend the same fundamental human rights to these felons when apprehended and tried in courts of competent jurisdiction so as to shy away from capital punishment. Nigeria is passing through very defining moments in history and the issue of growing insecurity needs to be tackled rather decisively. Desperate situations demand equally desperate attempts at solutions.
The flip side of the human rights argument is that when you say the State does not give life and as such should not legislate on taking it, then of course we are encouraging more of what is currently taking place across the country. Flagrant impunity and lawlessness.
The other side of the argument is that because these people have taken lives then they should pay for their misdemeanor with their own lives. That sounds more like a sense of justice.
The Bible in Leviticus 24:17, states that ‘If a man kills anyone, he must be put to death’. Kidnappers are out to kill and so should not be encouraged to live to keep on killing.
On the other hand, the opponents of capital punishment insist that the State is not God and as such has no right to take away that which it cannot give back, if it should so desire.
Every law however is as effective as its implementation. Over 3500 inmates in Nigeria’s correctional centers are currently on death row and we are told that there are no hangmen to effect their execution.
The bill being considered seeks to amend the extant law to, among other things, designate kidnapping, hostage taking, and related offences as acts of terrorism and to prescribe death penalty for such offences without option of fine or alternative sentence.
The law is a belated response to Nigeria’s security situation. It may however not go beyond the paper in which it is printed. This is because the structure and sincere political will for implementation are yet to be in place. Laws do not implement themselves. Structures and institutions do.
