Dirisu Yakubu
The Senate on Thursday approved the death penalty for dealers and importers of cocaine, heroin and other hard drugs into the country.
The proposed capital punishment also applies to manufacturing, trafficking, dealing in or delivery of hard drugs by any means.
This decision was arrived at during the resolution on the floor of the red chamber after deliberations on the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
The maximum punishment in the extant law for offenders is life imprisonment.
During the consideration of the report on the bill for passage on Thursday, Senate Whip, Ali Ndume, representing APC, Borno South, recommended that the punishment of life imprisonment be “toughened” to the death penalty.
The penalty for drug importation or dealership is captured in Section 11 of the extant law, which Ndume sought to be increased to a death sentence.
He said, “This (life imprisonment) should be changed to a death sentence. This is the standard worldwide. We have to do this to address this problem of drugs that has seriously affected our youths.
“It should be toughened beyond life imprisonment. It should be the death sentence, either by hanging or any way.”
However, the proposal did not sit well with some senators, including former Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, who took to the floor to voice out his reservations.
According to him, he would rarely joke with any matter concerning life and death.
“When a matter has to do with life and death, we should be accountable. Let’s divide the Senate. This is lawmaking. We are not here to take voice votes,” Oshiomhole said.
His position was overruled by the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin, who presided over the plenary.
Jibrin told Oshiomhole that he should have called for a division of the Senate immediately after the voting took place and before the Senate moved to another clause in the amendment bill.
“This is about procedure. You were supposed to call for a division; you didn’t do so. I am sorry, I can’t help you”, the DSP stood his ground and stuck with the decision of the Senate.
Similarly, Senator Sampson Ekong from Akwa Ibom State also kicked against the resolution of the Senate but he was 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.
Recall that in September 2022, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency seized 1.8 tonnes of cocaine worth “N194 billion” in Lagos, which was declared the biggest singular cocaine seizure in the agency’s history.
PUNCH Healthwise reports that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime listed Nigeria as one of the main transit routes for drugs in the Gulf of Guinea, growing partnerships with South and Central American drug trafficking syndicates.
Morocco was listed as second to Nigeria in the African drug trafficking market.
In the UNODC ‘Global Report on Cocaine 2023’ it was noted that Nigerian traffickers often work in collaboration with their compatriots in other countries, especially members of cult groups in European destination countries and those operating in Brazil.
The report stated, “Based on aggregate reporting to UNODC, by Nigeria and other countries, on the main cocaine trafficking routes during 2018-2021, trafficking of cocaine was reported from Nigeria to 20 countries or territories, including countries within the subregion (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Senegal, Liberia), transit countries in Africa (Algeria, Ethiopia, Morocco), and countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region (Australia, China, Hong Kong, China, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka), in the Near and Middle East/ South-West Asia (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates) and in Europe (Turkiye, United Kingdom),” the report reads.
“Cocaine arrives in Nigeria via a variety of channels including bulk carrier vessels arriving at seaports such as Apapa, Tincan Island, and Onne: passenger flights into airports such as those of Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, and Kano: across land borders at various locations, including Seme (on the border with Benin) and llela (on the border with
Niger); and via parcels delivered by courier companies or postal services.
“The most prominent departure country for cocaine reaching Nigeria is Brazil. Thus, despite the established and
well-connected presence of Nigerian traffickers within an international network of actors and counterparts trafficking cocaine (and other drugs), notably with regard to trafficking by air, in view of the available seizure data, it is plausible that the volume of cocaine transiting Nigerian territory is a relatively modest share of the quantities reaching West and Central Africa.
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