Kidnappers may face death penalty in Benue

By Peter Duru

MAKURDI — THE Benue State Government plans to introduce life imprisonment or death penalty as punishment for the offence of kidnapping in the state.

Governor Gabriel Suswam dropped this hint at the Benue State Police Headquarters in Makurdi when three kidnap suspects involved in the alleged abduction of an eight-year-old girl, Stella Adamgbe, were paraded before newsmen.

He said government was working out modalities to send a bill to the state House of Assembly to give effect to the new law.

According to him, “the trend for people to abduct others just to grab money is strange to our people and we are forced by this development to emulate other states that have introduced stiffer punishments like death penalty or life imprisonment  for offenders in order to arrest the trend.”

Suswam further said his government was taking some security measures to ensure the security of lives and property of the people of the state.

“Security is everybody’s business and responsibility and that is  why we must all team up with the police and the state government to fight this menace,” the governor said.

The governor who regretted that a 22-year-old female undergraduate, Miss Priscilla Ikyobo, could mastermind the abduction of her own niece said: “This is a new dimension to the kidnap saga in the country.”