The Nigerian Senate has prescribed life imprisonment for anyone found guilty of an offence of kidnapping.
The lawmaker by the development has raised the punishment from 10 years to life imprisonment.
The red chamber also on Tuesday deleted the statute of limitation on defilement and removed gender restrictions on rape offences.
These resolutions followed the third reading and passage of “A bill for an Act to amend the Criminal Code Act CAP. C.38, Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004.”
The Bill was sponsored by Senator Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central), and seeks to delete the statute of limitation on defilement, increase punishment for the offence of kidnapping.
It also seeks to remove gender restrictions in the offence of rape and other related matters, explaining that both male and female could be raped.
The Bill also eliminated the present time frame for reporting and prosecuting defilement cases in the country.
If the Bill becomes law, defilement cases can be actionable at any time.