Lagos — THE drastic law recently passed in five states to make kidnapping a capital offence is understandable but unacceptable because they cannot guarantee the purpose of the enactments.

The parliaments in Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Akwa Ibom and Rivers have voted for capital punishment for kidnappers. The National Assembly (NASS) will follow suit with an equally stiff legislation, if a similar move initiated by the Police Inspector-General Mike Okiro sails through.

The IG, according to his spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu, recently sent a bill to NASS recommending life gaol for perpetrators and their collaborators in the crime. Collaborators in this case include anyone having but concealing the knowledge of the abductor's or captive's whereabouts and or anyone who negotiates ransom on behalf of the kidnapper. These legislative measures no doubt amount to an admission of the gravity of kidnapping.

Abduction is widely recognised as the militant's desperate political weapon, usually aimed at getting urgent attention or forcefully scoring some point. The restive Niger Delta youths initially used this ploy in that classic tradition until lately when some criminals resorted to kidnapping. Now totally shorn of its original political hue, kidnapping became everybody's nightmare.

Capital punishment is one singular emotive socio-political issue that neatly divides nations into abolitionists and retentionists and has given rise to influential pressure groups such as Amnesty International and Hands Off Cain. It has reached a height that political parties earn or lose votes by virtue of their stand on the issue. Virtually as a result of sustained campaign over the years, 138 of the world's 193 independent nation-states have abolished the death penalty, in law or in practice; many more, Nigeria inclusive, observe self-imposed moratorium.

Africa, for example, is largely free of executions, with only Botswana, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Libya, Somalia and Sudan (of the 53 African Union members) known to have carried out executions in 2007. In Nigeria, no elected governor has ever signed the death warrant since Second Republic, even though it is their constitutional responsibility.

At the latest count, Nigeria's condemned-prisoner population was over 700 and some of them have stayed beyond 24 years in very squalid conditions. With this record, we believe the retentionist states want to build scarecrows into their statute books or just want to further populate the prisons.

We are deeply concerned that while the world is moving away from capital punishment, some state governments are indeed extending capital punishment to other crimes. So far, there is no sure-fire proof that retention of capital punishment has reduced armed robbery or murder rates; between 1970 and 1979 when over 2,600 convicts were killed by the state, the crime did not abate. Actually, in some countries where the death penalty has been abrogated, decline in crime rate is noticeable.

Though we recognise the constitutional duty of the authorities to protect people, experience has shown that the threat of death is not an effective deterrent to violent crime. Other factors more important in deterring crime include the ever-present risk of detection, a deterrent effect best served by capacity building in the police detection and investigation and judicial independence. Also, a tribunal dedicated to kidnapping offences to enhance the speed of trials will not come amiss.

Again, the death penalty removes the individual's humanity as well as any chance of rehabilitation and their giving something back to society, which is the very essence of the penitentiary. The IG's bill intends to achieve this reformative end, even if the convict is put away for life.

While we acknowledge the widespread concern for the rise in crime generally, and kidnapping in particular, we also note that crime has a strong and positive correlation with the level of breakdown of the social justice system.

Questions arise as to whether MPs who vote today with glee for capital punishment for kidnappers would do so with equal zeal if the bill were to make official corruption a capital offence. Many Nigerians are in abject poverty engendered by graft, which constitutes a drainpipe that salts away public resources meant for services that keep people in constructive economic engagement.

Extension of the scope of the death penalty, no matter the crime, is contrary to Nigeria's international human rights obligations. As a member of the UN Human Rights Council, Nigeria is required to uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, including the right to life. Just this last February at the fourth session of the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Chief Ojo Maduekwe, the minister of foreign affairs, said, "Nigeria continues to exercise a self-imposed moratorium (on the death penalty)." We ask state governments to reflect this self-imposed moratorium and to be appropriately guided.