Death penalty to bandits, terrorists and Kidnappers!

The invasion of Government Secondary School and LEA Primary School at Kuriga, Kaduna State where 287 students, teachers and pupils were abducted on Thursday last week was dastardly yet again and heartbroken that nothing short of effort to reunite them with parents is the needful things to do.

Few hours after, bandits struck in Gidan Bakuso in Gada Local Government Area of Sokoto State, where about 15 Tsangaya students with several persons were abducted. This is even as reports says a private negotiator has been engaged to reach out to bandits for release of abductees with possible ransom payment by the State. The target of bandits is the vulnerable ones, and they seem to be succeeding!

With the resurgence of mass abductions mostly in the Northern part of the country, it has confirmed that kidnapping and terrorism has gone beyond political, and the lack of job for the youths as Nigerians were made to believe in the past to a full blown business enterprise. This has nonetheless undermine Nigeria’s national security and the only effective and workable response is the establishment of “Anti-kidnapping and terrorism tribunal”, a special court that should have a coordinate jurisdiction with the Federal and State High Courts to pronounce death penalty where anyone who is found culpable should not live more than three months.

The Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2014 should be amended to include ‘death penalty’ for bandits, kidnappers and terrorists and government should understand at this point that ‘honey moon’ for these criminal elements should be over if life and property of Nigerians as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended should be protected.

It is interesting to know that government spent over N12 trillion in combating insecurity in the last 8 years, yet this has not abated due to several factors viz:

That some highly placed public and private business executives are suspiciously behind these criminal elements including some suspects who may be Senators.

Some foreign nationals continue to flood Nigeria through porous borders with the neighbouring West African Countries who continue to feign same religion and using advantage of sub-regional Hausa language to access Nigeria’s territories to engage in banditry.

Nigerians have not forgotten in a hurry confession of Kawu Baraje, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Kwara in 2022 while celebrating his 70th birthday anniversary, and said, the high level of insecurity was occasioned by influx of Fulani from neighbouring countries like Sierra Leone, Mali, Senegal, Niger and Chad brought into the country for election purposes in 2015.

Also, banditry, terrorism and kidnapping continue to thrive due to ransom paid by government and private individuals such that in the last 9 years, a whopping sum of $18.34 million or N7 billion was paid as ransom to criminal elements.

Tinubu must take on highly placed individuals behind bandits who continue to wreak, terrorise, kidnap, kill and rape Nigerian mothers in communities.

This has gone beyond Legislators’ debate in Chambers and at close sessions as such has not worked since the advent terrorism and banditry in Nigeria.

Death to terrorists, bandits and kidnappers and their sponsors is the way to go for now.