The Senate on Tuesday raised the punishment for anyone found guilty on the offence of kidnapping from 10 years to life imprisonment.
The upper chamber also deleted the statute of limitation on defilement as well removed gender restrictions on the offences of rape.
These resolutions of the Senate followed the third reading and passage of “A bill for an Act to amend the Criminal Code Act CAP. C.38, Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004.”
The Bill sponsored by Senator Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central), seeks to delete the statute of limitation on defilement, increase punishment for the offence of kidnapping, and remove gender restrictions in the offence of rape and other related matters.
The Bill also eliminated the present time frame for reporting and prosecuting defilement cases in the country.
It also removed gender restrictions on the offence of rape by explaining that both male and female could be raped.
If the Bill becomes law, defilement cases can be actionable at any time.
When talking to Nigerians about insecurity, especially those that live in the Lagos-Ibadan corridor, Abuja, and Port Harcourt some of the most developed parts of the country the first thing they often raise is their fear of kidnapping specifically and crime more generally.
For them, kidnapping is far more immediate than the carnage of Boko Haram, far away in the northeast, or the carnage in the middle belt over land and water use between “farmers” and “herders.”
In the oil patch and Port Harcourt, kidnapping is often seen as a manifestation of the ongoing, low-level insurrection over how oil revenue is distributed.
In the past, kidnapping victims tended to be the wealthy and the prominent, and so kidnappers had every interest in keeping their victims alive to extract the maximum ransom possible.
In March 2020, for example, two Nigerian footballers were kidnapped and released soon after, though it is not clear if a ransom was paid.
Further, hours before a world cup match in 2018, the captain of Nigeria’s national football team learned that his father had been kidnapped.
In many parts of the country, kidnapping appears to have become a business, especially for otherwise unemployed youth.
SB Morgen expresses concern that kidnapping will increase as Nigeria falls into recession driven by the coronavirus and the fall in oil prices, putting more people out of work.
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