At last the National Assembly has endorsed death penalty for perpetrators of terror acts in Nigeria. With the development, the lawmakers have upped the ante on the fight against terrorists.
Both chambers also passed the N161billion supplementary budget requested by President Goodluck Jonathan to pay off outstanding fuel subsidy money and to avert fuel scarcity during the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Also, soldiers were said to have arrested about 63 suspects in connection with the kidnapping of Mrs. Kanene Okonjo, mother of finance minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The legislators’ resolution of death sentence for terrorists was contained in the conference committee report of both chambers of the National Assembly, which harmonised a Bill for an Act to amend the Terrorism (prevention) Act 2011 and for other related matters.
In the report read on the Senate floor, chairman of the conference committee, Sen. Mohammed Magoro, said that “Clause 2 amends Section 1 of the principal Act which deals with “prohibition of acts of terrorism” in general. The senate version prescribed life imprisonment for offences under this clause while the House version prescribed death penalty. After deliberations, the House version was adopted by the conference committee.”
“Equally, in Clause 2, a new section – 1A, was inserted immediately after Section 1 of the principal Act. This new provision deals with national coordinating bodies in counter-terrorism offences and designates specific institutions, and vests specific powers and functions; that is, the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and relevant law enforcement and security agencies.
“The Conference Committee considered in detail the new provision vis-a-vis other extant laws in force with regard to national security and prevention of terrorism and adopted the house version”.
The committee further substituted the words ‘national security adviser’, ‘inspector-general of police’, and the ‘president,’ replacing them with the clause: “attorney-general shall apply for the forfeiture of any funds or property seized under this Act.”
The report was, however, not adopted yesterday by the Senate because the signatures of some members of the conference committee, including that of the House Committee chairman, were not in the report.
Senate President David Mark, however, instructed the committee chairman to get the report signed by all members of the committee for proper documentation.