Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, weekend, said it would re-consider its stance on whether to defend kidnappers or not if the current trend of kidnappings continued in the country.

President of NBA, Chief Augustine Alegeh, SAN, who spoke in Benin at the end of Mid-West Bar Forum’s meeting, recalled the kidnapping of the immediate past President of the NBA, Mr. Okeh Wali, recently released by his abductors, and the kidnap of Mr. Desmond Dudu of the Sapele branch, now spending 17 days in captivity.

He said: “Even in the Mid-West Bar Forum, we have discussed it at length. For us, the scourge of kidnapping is on the rise and if this trend continues, the Bar will need to reconsider its position, whether we will defend kidnappers.”

He noted that security agencies were understaffed lamenting that, “if we must deal with kidnapping, we need to properly police our country to ensure that anybody who is kidnapped, even if ransom is paid, even if he is released, that the kidnappers are eventually caught are made to face the punishment whether it is death sentence, life sentence or ten years. The reason why people are still involved in kidnapping is because they have a belief that they will never be apprehended. If anybody knows that if he kidnaps and he is eventually caught, then, it becomes a deterrent, once he commits an offence and gets a death penalty. But when he believes there is an option between the sentences he gets, there is a prevalence of that crime.

“I want to say that the punishment for a crime is only deterrent; it is not a safety gap, it is not to ensure that a crime is not committed.”