ALL over the world, drug trafficking constitutes a severe punishable offence depending on the country where the offence occurs.
While in some countries, the punishment for such an offence is a jail term in others, it attracts capital punishment.
In Nigeria, the menace of drug trafficking was not much of public concern until some decades ago when General Mohammadu Buhari’s military regime sentenced one Bartlomeo Owoh and some other drug couriers to death by firing squad for engaging in the illicit trade.
The public execution attracted tremendous outcry not because the people support drug peddling but for the retroactive approach by the military junta in endorsing the killing of the offenders.
Decades after this gory episode, the drug business and death penalty associated with it has assumed wider and more alarming dimension as the drug traffickers have become more daring and ambitious cutting across international borders.
Recently, 23 Nigerians of Anambra State origin are reported to be awaiting death penalty inside the prison confines in Indonesia.
According to media reports, the convicts, having been found guilty by the court in Indonesia, will pay the supreme price for engaging in drug peddling.
The sentence no doubt reenacts the country’s low tolerance for illicit drug business.
Considering the negative impacts of drug trafficking on individuals and the society at large, such severe penalty cannot be faulted.
For one, it is a statement of fact that many hardened criminals rely on hard drugs to unleash their heinous onslaught against humanity.
Indeed, security operatives hardly parade kidnappers, armed robbers, cyber criminals to mention a few, without confessions of the suspects admitting the use of hard drugs to facilitate their unlawful acts.
Besides, illicit drug trafficking and use have more often than not contributed to rising cases of mental health challenges, suicide, murder and other avoidable vices in the society.
Added to these is the image dent that the criminal activities and eventual sentencing of the convicts pose to our nation in international circle.
We totally condemn the activities of not only these convicts in Indonesia over drug trafficking but all other peddlers across the world.
By yielding themselves to such dangerous and illegal business coupled with the subsequent death, sentence, they have also robbed their families,the nation and humanity meaningful and positive contributions to social, political and economic development which the society and generations unborn expected from them.
We are worried about this sad trajectory of channeling youthful energy and time into deadly ventures that ultimately lead to death.
Many have blamed this ugly disposition to poverty, unemployment, greed and the get-rich quick syndrome among others.
We, however, do not subscribe to such view as none of these factors and indeed any other factor justifies such wicked and vicious means of livelihood.
On the contrary, greed, avarice, poor parental upbringing, moral decadence, bad peer group influence and break down of societal norms and values account largely to the worrisome trend.
Parents, non-governmental organisations, guardians, community, opinion and religious leaders and traditional rulers should redouble efforts at remolding the characters of the youths by inculcating in them the need for hard work transparent honesty, decency and avoidance of shape practices.
Drug trafficking is indeed, ungodly, immoral and highly reprehensible and should be avoided like a plague.
Nevertheless, we cannot but express concern on the fairness or lack of it in the trial, conviction and sentencing of the 23 Anambra State-born Nigerians by Indonesian court for drug peddling.
More often than not, accused persons facing trials in foreign countries are denied fair trials or are hurriedly tried leading to miscarriage of justice. In such circumstances, justice rushed or subdued remains justice crushed.
We want to believe that this is not the case of the Anambra-born drug convicts waiting execution as anything to the contrary will amount to unmitigated travesty of justice.
It is against this backdrop that we urge the relevant authorities, particularly the Nigerian embassy in Indonesia to look into this aspect of the case with a view to ensuring that justice was not only done but also manifestly seen to have been done.
