The Federal Government, according to the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, is mulling capital punishment for rail-track vandals in the country. During a Town Hall Meeting on “Protecting Public Infrastructure,” which held in Abuja on Monday, June 7, 2021, Mr Amaechi opined: “Rail track vandalism is a capital offence and its consequences should be treated as such.”

“Rail-track vandalism cannot just be seen as base acts of stealing for profit but must be seen – due to the hydra-headed resultant dire consequences – as economic sabotage/terrorism and in applicable cases acts of enemy sabotage, translating into acts of war.”

Since Nigeria is not actively at war with another country or other countries, we can discountenance that as a rationale behind Mr Amaechi’s call for the death penalty. Indeed, rail-track sabotage in times of war, in every jurisdiction where it has been recorded, has begotten summary trials (if any) and swift executions of those caught in sabotaging “permanent ways.” Such is the magnitude of the act.

By inference – deducing from the minister’s speech – his call for the execution of rail-track vandals is predicated on acts of economic terrorism, resulting in the deaths of citizens. Vandalised rail-tracks translate not only to sabotaging the economy, that is, in needless expenditure to fix looted rail-tracks. But more poignant and consequential, vandalised rail-tracks translate to derailed trains, which translates to the death of commuters.

As disturbing as the activities of thieving rail-track saboteurs are – and as laudable as the intentions of the Federal Government through plans by the Transportation Minister to seek the stiffest penalty to stem the tide may be – the remedy and it’s conceptualisation, unfortunately, is in keeping with the prescribed methodology of our public office-holders in forever falling over themselves to deal with the symptoms, instead of the disease, a “disease” of which they are the “host.”

By the way, what is wrong in the consideration of “life imprisonment” as a fitting and proper sanction? What is the continuing fascination with the imposition of “direst consequences” by the ruling class upon “subject” people, “sanctions” that they (elites) are averse to when mooted in any legislation that may affect them.

For a moment, let’s countenance the death penalty and see how best it can be applied as a sanction. Let’s look at the death penalty vis-a-vis consequential actions as expounded by Mr Amaechi. Let's compare and contrast the nefarious activities of misleaders (the disease) and hopelessly hungry vandals (symptom). Surely, what is good for the goose must be sauce for the gander.

What is the distinction between a rail-track thief and a public office-holder thief who steals stupendous amounts of money meant for roads, health-care, pipe-borne water, pensions, military equipment, to mention but a few? Are there really any consequential differences as a result of the action of the rail-track thief and thieves who steal from the public till, negating infrastructural development and provision of amenities, etc.

Surely, the consequences of not fixing roads due to diversion of money translate to bad roads, which also translate to accidents and deaths.

Surely, the consequences of stealing from funds appropriated for health-care translate to rot and decay of the sector, which results in needless deaths of Nigerians.

Surely, stealing money meant for the provision of clean drinking water translates to such diseases like cholera and other water-borne diseases for those so deprived, which translates to untimely deaths of citizens.

Surely, the wicked and vile stealing of pensions of the aged translates to the miserable deaths of many of our beloved senior citizens.

Surely, stealing policing and military funds meant to equip those we send into harm's way is an accursed act that translates to the needless deaths of so many of our young police and military personnel.

Surely, stealing funds meant for education is a damnable act that spews such inexhaustible ills ranging from millions of out of school children, banditry, kidnapping, etc, translating to insecurity and wanton deaths of citizens.

The consequential results of public office stealing (vandalism) are so odious, numerous and laced with such dire reckoning that, indeed, the death penalty as a sanction will be most deserving. Just like Mr Amaechi could see the consequential results of rail-track bandits so clearly as to say “I am not quantifying the material cost; what I am quantifying is the lives that will be lost,” so also are the results of official corruption so empirically and clearly manifest.

The Minister of Transportation said: “Imagine that a driver of a rail-track is driving and suddenly bumps into a track that has been severed; what happens? It will derail.”

What cannot be left to the imagination is the fact that Nigerians have perennially felt the consistent bumps in a country seemingly forever derailed by “vampiric” public office-holders.

When the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, goes to the National Assembly, as he has alluded, he should go with a “bill” backed by the government not only to seek the death penalty for rail-track vandals but for oil pipeline vandals as well, and other crimes that fall within the ambit of “economic terrorism.”

At the very top and chief among crimes of economic terrorism is treasury looting by government/political office-holders and top civil servants that dwarfs all others in its consequences.

•Victor Ikhatalor, Human Rights and Good Governance Advocate, can be reached on:

@MyTribeNigeria; kingjvic7@gmail.com

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