• Name kidnappers, pipeline vandals as offenders
Stiffer penalties await terrorists and their accomplices if fresh bills by members of the House of Representatives become law.
Members of the lower legislative chamber yesterday considered bills prescribing tougher punishments including life imprisonment for offenders.
The bills, which scaled second reading at a plenary presided by Speaker Yakubu Dogara, were: “A Bill for an Act to Make Provisions for Offences Relating to Terrorism, Prohibit the Financing of Terrorism and Consolidate all Acts Relating to Terrorism and for Related Matters” and “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Terrorism Act 2011 for the Purpose of Applying Stringent Prison Terms for Offences of Terrorism, and Remove Ambiguities in the Act and for Related Matters.”
Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Monguno, APC, Borno) and Ahmed Kaita (Kankia, APC, Katsina) sponsored the bills.
According to the proposed legislations, any person who sponsors terrorism, commits the act, or facilitates the escape of a suspect faces a life prison sentence.
The proposal also makes room for stringent penalty for planning an act of terror, even when the deed is eventually not committed.
While the first bill seeks to repeal the existing terrorism (prohibition) law and create entirely new provisions for offences, the second hopes to strengthen the extant law.
Section 19 of Monguno’s bill states: “A person who knowingly, directly or indirectly (a) aids and abets, (b) induces, instigates, instructs (c) counsels or procures another person by means to commit an act of terrorism, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to life imprisonment.” It adds: “Where the offence of terrorism is not committed, such person would be sentenced for a term of 20 years.”
The bill broadly defines terrorism as a “deliberate” act of “malice”, which may cause harm to a country, its government, economy, international organisations, or claim lives. Kidnapping and the use of biological or chemical weapons were classified as terrorism under the bill.
