Nigeria’s Senate on Thursday proposed significantly toughening penalties for drug trafficking, making the death penalty the new maximum sentence through a law amendment.
The amendment, which is not yet law, replaces life imprisonment, which was previously the harshest punishment.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of more than 200 million people, has in recent years gone from being a transit point for illegal drugs to a full-blown producer, consumer and distributor.
Opioid abuse, especially tramadol and cough syrups containing codeine, has been widespread throughout Nigeria, according to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, which banned production and import of codeine cough syrup in 2018.
