Legislator calls for anti-kidnapping squad

iyebiye olawuyi

February 16, 2017 4:30 PM

Braimoh made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

Tunde Braimoh

A Lagos State legislator, Mr Tunde Braimoh, on Thursday called on the Federal Government to establish an anti-kidnapping squad to tackle the crime.

Braimoh, the Chairman of the Lagos State House of Assembly committee on Information, Strategy and Security, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

He made the call following the abduction of two security guards and five farmers in Epe, Lagos, on Tuesday.

The chairman urged the police urgently rescue the victims and arrest their abductors.

“I call on the government to dedicate a special squad of specialised law enforcement agents and intelligence personnel to the debilitating scourge of kidnapping."“The latest incident of kidnapping that occurred on an Epe farmland is callous, crude and cruel. This is especially so as the victims are poor peasants struggling for survival."

“It is most disheartening that people labouring and striving for their daily bread in accordance with the commandment of God and charter of the United Nations could be so savagely kidnapped by unscrupulous elements."

“To visit such act of mindlessness and wickedness on some people who believe in the dignity of labour is the very definition of man’s inhumanity to man,’’ he said.

The lawmaker said that activities of kidnappers on Lagos waterways and coastal areas had become a source of worry, especially for the governor and the Assembly.

“Crime does not pay; every criminal will have a date with the law." Braimoh said.

According to him, no criminal has ever operated unchecked for more than five years.

“These criminals must halt this unacceptable spate of kidnapping so as to allow the performing Gov. Akinwummi Ambode to retain his tempo and focus for the benefit of all.”

NAN reports that the kidnapping of the guards and farmers in a farm at Igbodu area of Epe by gunmen in military camouflage occurred barely two weeks after kidnappers invaded the same community and abducted four persons.

Kidnapping in Lagos State now attracts death sentence if the victims die in the hands of their abductors, while the act of kidnapping attracts life imprisonment.

The punishments were provided for by the state’s Kidnapping Prohibition Bill, 2016, which was signed into law by Ambode on Feb.1.

The state Assembly had passed the bill into law on Jan. 5.

iyebiye olawuyi