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11-05-2024
ABUJA: Nigeria’s Senate on Thursday proposed significantly toughening penalties for drug trafficking, making the death penalty the new maximum sentence through a law amendment.
The amendment, which is not yet law, replaces life imprisonment, which was previously the harshest punishment.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of more than 200 million people, has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor.
Opioid abuse, especially tramadol and cough syrups containing codeine, has been widespread throughout Nigeria, according to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, which banned production and import of codeine cough syrup in 2018.
While cannabis is cultivated locally, cocaine, methamphetamine and other narcotics are trafficked through the country alongside opioids to feed a growing addiction problem.
The legislation stemmed from a report by the Senate committees on judiciary, human rights and legal matters, and drugs and narcotics, which Senator Mohammed Monguno presented during Thursday’s plenary session.
Supporters argued the threat of execution would serve as a stronger deterrent to drug traffickers than life imprisonment.
Lawmakers who opposed the measure expressed concerns about the irreversible nature of the death penalty and the possibility of wrongful convictions.
The House of Representatives earlier passed the bill but without a death penalty provision. Five select members of the Senate and House will need to harmonize the two versions before it goes to the president.
During the consideration of the report on the bill for passage on Thursday, Senate Whip, Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South), recommended that the punishment of life imprisonment be “toughened” and upgraded to the death penalty.
Similarly, Senator Sampson Ekong from Akwa Ibom State kicked against the resolution of the Senate but he was also overruled.
The Senate went ahead to pass the bill for a third reading.
The report on the bill was jointly produced by the Committees on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters/Drugs and Narcotics.
Speaking with Senate correspondents after the plenary, the Chairman of the Joint Committee, Mohammed Monguno, said the Senate approved the death sentence, noting that the voices of Oshiomhole and others did not change the ruling of the presiding officer.
“The ruling of the presiding officer is the position of the Senate,” he added.
When contacted over the development, the spokesperson for the NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, said that the anti-narcotics agency could not comment on the matter, being an ongoing legislative business, which had not yet been finalized.
Babafemi said, “The agency cannot comment or be involved in the development because it is a legislative matter.”
Meanwhile, impeccable senior anti-narcotics officers, who spoke to one of our correspondents on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, noted that the House of Representatives and the Senate had yet to harmonize their positions on the amended penalty for drug offenders.
They noted that while the House of Representatives was proposing life sentence for convicted drug offenders, the Senate proposed a death sentence, hence the need to harmonize their positions. (Int’l News Desk)
