By Tonye Clinton Jaja
The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration (NAFDAC) is supposed to receive accolades and a standing ovation from the citizens of Nigeria.
But it appears we are not bothered by any form of good news.
It is only bad news that trends on social media!!!
Otherwise, the DG of NAFDAC is supposed to be praised to the high heavens for the following report that appeared today as follows:
“The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has proposed the death penalty for drug peddlers.
According to the Director-General of the agency Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, only stiff penalties will deter peddlers especially when it leads to the death of children.”
The DG of NAFDAC is 100% correct on this matter. Children deserve 100% protection from the law, and whoever kills them deserves to face the same predicament of death!!!
Advocates of the death penalty, often argue that the offenders may repent or that the surviving relatives may be willing to forgive the perpetrators and spare them the death penalty.
My answer to this is very simple: the advocates of abolition of death penalty should surrender at least one of their very close relatives, let such a relative be murdered by a cold blooded killer, then let the advocate of abolition of the death penalty freely forgive the perpetrator.
Even since I poised this challenge on one of our lawyers WhatsApp platform, not one of the advocates of the abolition of the death penalty has answered!!
It is important to inform the advocates of abolition of death penalty that the death penalty is to be administered by courts of law under strict rules, and after satisfying certain benchmarks.
Death penalty is not to be automatically applied on all persons who murder another human being.
Because in some instances, such as death resulting from traffic offences, it could be regarded as manslaughter or unintentional killing whose penalty may be manslaughter.
For example, very recently we received the report that some young Nigerians kidnapped and killed a legislator of the Anambra State House of Assembly, even after he paid the sum of ₦100m to them to secure his freedom from them!!!
They also identified the dead bodies of other victims that were killed by the said gang, who confessed that even after they have extorted a victim out of their kidnapping, it is their usual practice to kill such victims.
Such callousness, such display of absolute disregard for the value of human life can only be reciprocated by a sentence of death handed out by any of the courts of the nation’s judiciary.
There is no other way!!!
Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja,
Executive Director,
Nigerian Law Society (NLS).
