Henceforth, the act of kidnapping in Rivers state, south- south Nigeria will attract

a life sentence without any form of bail or fine. This was contained in the

Kidnapping Prohibition Bill of 2008 which the Rivers state House of Assembly passed

into law on Tuesday February 17, 2009. In the light of this law, anybody who aids

and abets kidnapping or fronts for them in order to collect any ransom for

kidnappers will be jailed for seven years. In recent past, politicians and

influential personalities in the Niger Delta region have become multi- millionaires

over night by fronting for militants who traded human freedom with money.

The House also went further to make it a criminal act which will attract a jail term

of 20 years for any failed attempt of kidnapping. Hon. Chidi Lloyd, the sponsor of

the bill and the Representative of Emohua state constituency, an oil producing area,

had earlier recommended a 21 year jail term for anybody caught in the act.

However, the Governor of the state, Rotimi Amaechi had before now made it known that

death sentence would be prescribed for any kidnapper. The only contradiction here is

that the House has decided to reduce the death sentence to a life jail. “Capital

punishment is fast becoming eroded globally”, said Hon. Hope Ikiriko,

Representative, Ahaoda East constituency. “We must do something to end the trading

in humans”, said Ogbona Nwuke, Rivers state commissioner for information. Speaking

in Port Harcourt, Rivers state capital, the government’s spokesman insisted that it

was wrong for a human being to be traded like an article of business by a fellow

man.Governor Amaechi equated kidnapping to armed robbery “when you take material things

away by force”.

In his reaction, Erekosima Onengiye, leader of the Niger Delta Non Violent Movement,

NDNVM, said “we appreciate the law but it must be all inclusive”. According to the

former spokesman of the Niger Delta Peoples Vigilante Force, NDPVF, Erekosima

explained that the House was too much in a hurry to pass the law, noting that what the

region is asking for is  a general amnesty to those who were involved in one crisis

or the other in the struggle to emancipate the Niger Delta region. He alleged that

most of the Lawmakers who pushed for the passage of the law  were involved in some

form of kidnapping for monetary gains. The youth leader sued for more comprehensive

laws against militancy, oil theft and even election rigging. 

With a population of about five million people, Rivers state is Nigeria’s hub of oil

and gas. It contributes about 60 per cent of the country’s total foreign earning

particularly in oil and gas. But since the advent of militancy three years ago,

which later culminated into kidnapping of expatriates, the state has suffered a

tremendous economic lose. Oil companies like SHELL, CHEVRON, AGIP and others have

relocated their headquarters to Lagos state, some 300 km from the city of Port

Harcourt.

Of the nine states that make up Niger Delta region in Nigeria, Rivers state produces

the highest barrels of crude oil per day out of the 1.9 million barrels produced by

the country daily. It also has the highest number of kidnapping cases than the other

eight states put together. There are more than 250 cases of kidnapping alone in

Rivers state in the past two years. And the number may keep increasing in the face

of the present economic meltdown which is already having its toll on Nigerian

economy.

Kidnapping of oil expatriates sometimes leads to a shut down of production by oil

companies and this often causes a tremendous negative impact in global oil prices.

Shell was quoted as saying that Nigeria must have lost at least N200 trillion in a

year to oil theft. No fewer than 100,000 barrels of crude oil are stolen from the

country every day. It was when government deployed a joint military force to the

region to protect the waterways and the oil facilities of the various companies that

the oil theft (bunkering) was reduced.