Gov. Abubakar Bello Okays Law To Hang Kidnappers, Bandits, Others, To Death

Abubakar Bello, the governor of Niger State, has signed a bill into law that proposes the death penalty for cattle rustlers, kidnappers, and their informants.

On July 1, Niger lawmakers passed the bill on the House floor.

The abduction and cattle rustling special provisions law of 2016 was changed, according to Bello, to ensure the punishment of spies and all those involved in abducting and cattle rustling in the state.

He stated that informants who are deemed to be accomplices of the kidnappers will now be sentenced to death by public hanging.

“The law now provides that whoever instigates any person to kidnap a person or rustle cattle, or intentionally aids, abets or facilitate by any acts of omission or commission of the offense of kidnapping and or cattle rustling is guilty of an offense and is liable on conviction to death by hanging in public,” he said in a report by The Cable.

The governor stated that the disciplinary measures were necessary owing to security crises that endanger the state’s peaceful coexistence.

He bemoaned the role of informants, who, he said, have hampered security personnel’ efforts to combat kidnapping and livestock rustling.

The vigilante amendment law, according to Bello, is intended to reinvigorate and strengthen state vigilante corps for enhanced operational efficiency in carrying out their statutory mission of “complementing the efforts of our conventional federal security forces.”