Following the incessant vandalism of public infrastructure which is endangering the lives of Nigerians, the National Assembly has disclosed that it is planning to come up with strong legislation to impose capital punishment on vandals.
Senator Adamu Aliero, Senate Committee Chairman on Land Transportation, made this known on Monday in Kano during an on-the-spot assessment of the construction of a rail line between Kaduna to Kano by the joint committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
According to him, “The National Assembly is thinking of coming up with a very strong legislation that will make it criminal, if possible,that any vandal caught sabotaging public infrastructure, the punishment should attract the death penalty.
“Probably, if that happens, it will go a long way in reducing vandalization drastically,” he said.
Speaking on the other challenges connected with the project, particularly the funding arrangement, he said that the House intends to discuss with the Debt Management Office (DMO) the Minister of Finance, the Attorney General of the Federation, and also the Minister of Transportation, adding that because of the Committee’s oversight role on railways, it will do whatever is seemingly possible to ensure that the project is completed in time.
“We will lobby our colleagues in the National Assembly to ensure that this project does not suffer from inadequate funding. We believe that land transportation is very, very vital to the economic development of this country and there is no way a country can develop without an effective rail system.
“We are very optimistic that since President Bola Tinubu has made it a priority, we will be able to deliver on a good time under the Renewed Hope Agenda,” he said.
Also speaking, House of Representative Member, Mrs Blessing Onuh noted that the Senate and House of Representatives have resolved to review anti-theft mechanisms to stop vandals.
In her words, “Having been here, we have seen for ourselves. There are challenges that the Ministry of Transportation is facing. We understand that the cliffs are being stolen.
“We also resolved between ourselves— the Senate and the House— to go back and discuss further on how we can review the contract and see how we can install anti-theft mechanisms to stop people or vandals from vandalizing the existing tracks that we have on-going,” she noted.
On his part, the Minister of Transportation, Sa’idu Ahmed Alkali explained that the Ministry and the Nigerian Railway Corporation are working hard to ensure that vandals do not destroy national properties.
He further noted that, “We are deploying so much major surveillance in conjunction with the security agencies to ensure that these properties are not allowed to be vandalized.
“It is very unfortunate that it is not only the rail line that has been vandalized. As you rightly know, power installations, oil and gas installations, and bridges have been vandalized”, he stated.
