A Human Right Activist and lawyer, Alhaji Abdulfatai Abdulsalam, on Friday, said the death penalty passed by the senate as punishment for drug offenders was extremely harsh.
The Senate on Thursday passed a bill seeking to prescribe death penalty for persons found guilty of trading or consuming hard drugs and narcotics.
The bill titled “National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act (Amendment Bill) 2024” was passed after majority of the senators supported it at the Committee of the Whole.
The bill amended Section 11 of the NDLEA Act that prescribed that any person who, without lawful authority; Imports, manufactures, produces, processes, plants or grows the drugs popularly known as cocaine, heroin or any other similar drugs shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to be sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Abdulsalam, who is the Director General of ‘Good Governance and Leadership Assessment Initiative, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Osogbo that the penalty was extremely harsh.
“I don’t see and know any justification for such harsh legislation for drug trafficking,” he said.
Mr Abdulsalam equally stated that even if the death penalty was given assent to by the President, it would be un-implementable going by happenings in the country.
“Though it is a crime that should be discouraged, but it is not a crime that should go with death penalty.” he said
According to the lawyer, death penalty or death sentence is criticised and discouraged all over the world.
He said that even in Nigeria’s statutes, which still provides death sentences for capital offences, “the death sentence is rarely implemented.
“Thousands of convicts are in prison now who have been convicted, sentenced to death already, but they are not executed.
“Death sentence is there in our laws, but not implemented.
“So, why will the senate now prescribe such punishment for an offence that is not as serious as murder and armed robbery?” he asked.
Mr Abdulsalam said that laws provide punishments as deterrent to crimes, but added that punishment for crimes were determined by the category under which such crimes fall.
He said that the senate should have worked on ways of making the courts, law enforcement agencies and the NDLEA operations more effective and with the prosecution of drug offenders seamless.
NAN
Credit Gist New Today News in Newspaper Nigeria Headlines
