Barrister Ali Ahmad (Ph.D) (PDP, Kwara) is the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Justice. He spoke on the Anti-Terrorism Amendment Bill 2012 and what necessitated the alteration of the law that was barely one year old.

What are the major amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Law?

The bill, as passed in the conference committee of both the House and the Senate, of which I am member, introduced some far-reaching amendments to the current law. They are very elaborate. It insists on the exercise of those civil rights of citizens and anybody who is reasonably suspected to have committed, or in the process of committing or planning the commission of acts suspected to be terrorism, can be apprehended without a warrant of arrest and detained for 48 hours without even having access to his lawyers. This is an advance power given to intelligence officers, not ordinary police officers. They can have powers to evade your civil and personal liberty in order to protect the entire citizens.

Human right activists expressed concerns that this law seems to supersede the constitution because of the wide ranging powers. Is that true?

I don't think so. As I said, an intelligence officer can arrest without a warrant. It just widens the powers of the arresting officer. The constitution permits arrest without warrant in some limited cases. We hope they will use it properly to fight terrorism. In America you will see that before the law was passed there was a lot of debate. Here the Director of SSS can break into your communication, your phone. Perhaps, people are not aware of it. The powers are very wide and people who are interested in personal liberties of citizens should be concerned. But government is working in unison. We, in the legislature, are doing our part. After some years we could revisit the law.

But the law was just enacted in 2011 and within the span of just one year here come amendments. What was wrong with that initial Act?

It was believed that we needed to reflect the global practice in tracking down terrorism worldwide. Terrorism is a global phenomenon. You cannot isolate Nigeria. And we have a peculiar problem in Nigeria and every sensible person should shudder about the wide-ranging powers given to the law enforcement agencies, knowing how they misuse such powers. But let us give them a chance. This law was passed a year ago. Let them implement this law. We hope that they will not misuse it.