GROUP CONDEMNS RIVERS KIDNAPPING LAW, SAYS ITS FRIVOLOUS

THE Rivers State anti-kidnapping law which was passed by the state House of Assembly this week, yesterday came under the hammer of the Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law( IHRHL), a civil rights group based in Port Harcourt, the state capital.

Executive Director of the group, Mr. Anyankwee Nsirimovu, in a statement on Friday, said they were shocked beyond comprehension when they learnt that the state legislature has gone ahead to enact ''a monstrous law – the Kidnapping Law, that stipulates 20 years jail term, for convicted kidnappers,  without even opening same  to public hearing and  participation''.

''This does not only depict a most backward thinking legislature, but one that is out of touch with current trends in humane legislative initiative and creativity for good governance and security of citizens in 21st century civilisation. This is a legislation that plays to the gallery and serves only the interests of individual legislators and members of the executive, and as such is unequivocally condemned'', the group said.

According to them,''this is one legislation that further signifies the intent of a group of people  in government, who have sworn to high heaven, to shift the burdens of their abject failures in governance to the citizens. For Rivers citizens,  the response or answer to the debilitating criminal kidnapping in the state, which results from the criminal negligence of the state from its primary responsibilities to citizens, cannot be an  engagement  in any legislative rascality; but pressure  government to engage  in right decisions and action to deal with root causes of the problem, rather than  tinkering  with the branches or leaves. 

''For the avoidance of doubt, the Criminal Code Act, Section 364 is very clear on the fact that kidnapping is a felony and anybody found guilty is liable to imprisonment for ten years. It is very clear that where ten years cannot deter individuals or groups from kidnapping, simply multiplying  ten years by 2 arithmetically, which is what this legislation is basically about, cannot make a difference nor achieve the desired result, in a state made abnormal by crooked politicians''.

IHRHL said in  the hit of cultist terror in the state in 2003, the legislature then led by Chibuike Amaechi,  as Speaker, enacted the “Secret Cult and Similar Activities (Prohibition) Law, No 6 of 2004. ''This turned out to be an exercise in futility as it neither decreased the numbers of cultists in government, politics, state, proliferation of arms, nor succeeded in prohibiting anything'', they said.  

According to the rights group, ''increased small arms and more vicious cult groups  emerged, with most ferocious  delivery of violence. Subsequent elections, upon the enactment of the Anti Cult Law, in the state for example, witnessed more daring cultist presence and the heinous menace they usually provide. Their untouchable mentors, in highly placed power positions  remained intact''.

The IHRHL is insisting  that it is  the most fallacious theory, for the  state House of Assembly to think that they can legislate the structural violence which the state over time, has delivered to its people as democracy dividend, adding, ''the Legislature should derive its law making from social facts, and not depend on escapist agenda of state authority. This law rather than restore investor confidence in our economy, will beget further fears, therefore further deterioration of the economy and human security''.

The rest of their statement went thus:

''The IHRHL strongly maintains that if force and intimidation could will away the symptoms of the disease afflicting Rivers state, the presence of a most militarized police force and lately the  Joint Military Task Force, which ultimately serves death sentence on militants and kidnappers, would have been more than enough to do the job. The sheer nature of extrajudicial punishments meted out to suspected militants and kidnappers, which is a more superior method of barbarism in a civilised society, superior to only this law,  would have nipped kidnapping and other related offences in the bud. This law will clearly strengthen the unseen hands of extrajudicial executioners of, oftentimes, innocent law abiding citizens.

''The IHRHL wishes to remind the Legislators, whom government ought to be
answerable to and who it is, their responsibility to seek explanations, criticize and advise, to realise, if they have forgotten, that social and economic deterioration, ignored by
policy makers in government messed up enormous possibilities for development of the state. That Rivers state in the last nine years is a state suffering from administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructure and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor in the face of their impotency, which has resulted in the current endemic conflict, which criminals have infiltrated.

''That development thus far has been designed to capture what individual politicians who forced themselves upon the people want, and not what the people themselves
perceive to be their interests and needs. That corruption, mismanagement, rampant human rights abuses which this piece of legislation will further, and inadequate access to justice and human security,  is directly responsible for the  heightened alienation from government and other authority structures. 

''The IHRHL strongly calls on the legislature and state executive, who are variously fortified  24 hour with security machines; and who  care little or nothing about what happens to the rest members of society,  to urgently reverse themselves on this frivolous voyage of legislative relevance,  and save the citizens of the state and others the agony of an intensified violence, which ultimately is going to be the end result of this purposeless legislation. Experience has shown that state violence begets more ferocious violence by their opponents.

''Finally, the IHRHL strongly draws the attention of the Legislators to the effect, that our fundamental law, from which all other laws and authorities in Nigeria,  derive their validity, namely, the Nigerian Constitution, is itself founded on the Rule of Law.  The primary meaning according Obaseki, J.S.C. is that everything must be done according to law. It means also that government should be conducted within the frame-work of recognized rules and principles which restrict discretionary power which Coke colourfully spoke of as ‘golden and straight metwand of law as opposed to the uncertain and crooked cord of discretion’. This law fails the fundamental requirements of our basic law, especially so, its Chapter four''.