Link to article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/27/nigeria-outlaws-ransom-payments-abduction-punishable-by-death
The Nigerian Senate recently passed a bill amending the countries terrorism law that makes paying ransom in the case of a kidnapping illegal, and making Kidnapping that results in someone being killed punishable by death. chairman of the Senate’s human rights and legal committee, Opeyemi Bamidele, told the senate that this move would help “discourage the rising spate of kidnapping and abduction for ransom in Nigeria, which is fast spreading across the country”. This comes as armed gangs have been terrorizing the country for decades by kidnapping people for ransom. These gangs have already been named as terrorist by President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.
Although I understand where the government is coming from, I feel that making ransom payments illegal won’t fix the issue like they are hoping. People are still going to pay the ransom whether it’s legal or not, so why make it illegal. When families are in fear of losing a loved one, they may start to think irrationally. I don’t feel like that should be illegal. Paying a ransom is better than doing something else that could get themselves killed in order to save their loved ones. So although their reasoning makes sense on why they passed that law, I just don’t think it will be effective.
This relates back to class due to levels of analysis. On a state level, with the growing number of kidnappings for ransom that have happened over the last few decades, it is understandable that Nigeria wants to do something in order to try and lower the amount of kidnappings for ransom that occur. They used this reasoning to justify making a law that makes paying ransom illegal. Although that is more controversial, making kidnapping that results with someone being killed punishable by death has come with much less push back. The government is hoping that by passing this law the armed gangs in the country that have been terrorize people for years through kidnappings for ransom will slow down now that they won’t be able to receive ransom payments.