Senate Leader Bamidele commended for sponsoring capital punishment bill on terrorism

An advocacy group, Advocacy Intelligence and Development Partners (AIDP), has commended the Leader of the Senate, Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, for sponsoring a bill seeking capital punishment for terrorism, describing the move as courageous and necessary in the face of Nigeria’s worsening security challenges. In a statement signed by its Convener, Mr. Osabinu Olufemi, the […]

An advocacy group, Advocacy Intelligence and Development Partners (AIDP), has commended the Leader of the Senate, Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, for sponsoring a bill seeking capital punishment for terrorism, describing the move as courageous and necessary in the face of Nigeria’s worsening security challenges.

In a statement signed by its Convener, Mr. Osabinu Olufemi, the group said Senator Bamidele had chosen “the difficult but necessary path: placing national survival above political correctness,” at a time when Nigeria continues to grapple with insurgency, banditry, mass abductions and extremist violence.

According to AIDP, terrorism in Nigeria has become “systemic, organised, transnational, and ideological,” with groups such as Boko Haram, ISWAP and armed bandit networks pursuing the deliberate objective of undermining state authority and targeting civilians.

The group said the proposed legislation was not motivated by revenge but by the need for effective deterrence. It quoted the Senate Leader as saying, “When terrorists declare war on a state, the state must respond with laws that reflect the gravity of the war.”

AIDP argued that weak or negotiable penalties had failed to discourage terrorism, noting that the bill would send a clear message that “the Nigerian state will not negotiate its right to exist,” and that terrorism “is not activism, grievance politics, or cultural expression; it is mass murder.”

On the human rights debate surrounding capital punishment, the group said the bill restored what it described as moral balance, stressing that the state’s primary duty was the protection of innocent citizens. It asked, “Whose right to life deserves priority, the terrorist or the innocent citizen?”

While acknowledging concerns over judicial errors and possible political misuse, AIDP said such issues called for stronger safeguards rather than rejection of the bill.
According to the statement, “these concerns do not invalidate the bill; they demand procedural safeguards, not paralysis.”

The group also criticised what it described as opposition without credible alternatives, warning that “silence or equivocation in the face of terror is not neutrality; it is moral abdication.”

AIDP urged the National Assembly and Nigerians to support the bill as debates continue, insisting that decisive legal action was essential to restoring public confidence and ensuring national survival in the fight against terrorism.