Mohammed Bello El-Rufai, lawmaker representing Kaduna North Federal Constituency, has criticised what he calls troubling inconsistencies in terrorism sentencing across Nigeria.
Speaking during Thursday’s plenary, El-Rufai questioned why two individuals convicted of terrorism-related offences received drastically different punishments.
He cited the recent 20-year sentence handed to Hussaini Ismaila, an Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) commander, by the Federal High Court in Abuja.
This is coming just days after that judgment, IPOB leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was handed a life sentence for similar terrorism-related crimes.
El-Rufai said the disparity raises doubts about equal justice.
“There was a conviction of a Boko Haram terrorist, he got 20 years,” he said. “But Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was convicted last week and his own conviction was life imprisonment. I don’t understand. One terrorist gets 20 years, the other gets life. It creates this idea that justice is applied differently.”
