- By Halimah Olamide
The Senate has on Thursday approved a death penalty for persons found guilty of trading hard drugs.
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 proposed capital punishment also applies to manufacturing, trafficking, dealing in or delivery of hard drugs by any means.
Meanwhile, the maximum punishment in the extant law for offenders is life imprisonment.
The bill amended Section 11 of the NDLEA Act prescribing 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.
The section was amended to include death penalty as punishment for anybody found guilty of the offences.
The bill also sought to update the list of dangerous drugs, strengthen the operations of the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and empower the NDLEA to establish laboratories.
Majority of the senators voted in support of the bill.
However, the proposal did not sit well with some of his colleagues, including former Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, who took to the floor to voice out his reservations.
Oshiomhole told his colleagues that he would rarely joke with any matter concerning life and death.
His position was however overruled by the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin, who presided over the plenary, and put it to vote for the third reading.