The Supreme Court yesterday
confirmed the death sentence passed on a policeman, Usman Maigari, who
strangled his 12-year-old wife to death for rituals. The apex court upheld the death sentence on Maigari by the Sokoto State High Court and the Court of Appeal, Sokoto. The apex court, after analysing the parties’ written arguments, said that Maigari acted callously. “To say the least, the appellant
displayed a complete disregard for human life, with the archetypal
characteristics of a beast dressed in police uniform with which he set
about the abuse of that office and had thought he had enough expertise
to cover up the dastardly acts with the impunity that went along with
persons of such genre, best kept away from human society, especially as
he held nothing sacred.”
Maigari was arraigned before the Sokoto
High Court on July 13, 2000, charged with culpable homicide punishable
with death under Section 221(b) of the Penal Code. He was accused of causing the death of
his second wife, Sa’adatu Torankawa (whose age was put between 11 and 13
years) on January 11, 1999 “by strangulating her to death for ritual
reasons, then conveyed her corpse and dumped it in a culvert near
Janzomo village, along Kajiji-Shagari Road. He pleaded not guilty and underwent trial.
In his defence, he denied killing his wife, saying that she died while he was conveying her to the hospital. He said: “I can remember that sometime
in January 1999, my wife Sa’adatu fell sick one night. Then I conveyed
her on my motorcycle from Yabo in order to take her to the hospital in
Sokoto. “However, after we had passed Milgoma
village, she died. When I noticed that she was dead, I put her body in a
sack, then conveyed the corpse on my motorcycle and dumped it under a
culvert along Shagari-Kajiji Road, near one village called Janzomo.” He also told the court that he hid the
news about Sa’adatu’s “ailment” and subsequent death from everyone,
including his second wife, Hauwa’u and his deceased wife’s relatives,
because he was scared his in-laws could kill him.
At the conclusion of trial, the trial judge, Justice Abbas Bello, found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging. He challenged the decision at the Court of Appeal, Sokoto and lost, forcing him to appeal to the apex court. The Supreme Court, in the judgment read yesterday by Justice Mary Peter-Odili, upheld the decisions of both lower courts. The court wondered why the convict, a
policeman, chose to keep his wife’s ailment and subsequent death to
himself if he had no ulterior motive. The apex court also queried his decision
to dump his wife’s body at the car park of the hospital and later,
under a culvert, where it was later discovered by passers-by rather than
take her to the doctor for medical attention.
The court further wondered how Maigari,
not being a medical doctor, concluded that his wife was dead; and why
he chose to dump her corpse under a culvert along the road to rot away,
rather than inform her relatives for her to be properly buried. The apex court upheld the evidence in a
medical report tendered by the prosecution to the effect that the
deceased died from strangulation. “What is sure is that there is enough
circumstantial evidence, cogent, compelling, unequivocal and
irresistible, leading to the conclusion that the appellant and no other,
caused the death of his wife, a young person of between 12-13 years, by
strangulating her to death and dumping her corpse in a culvert. “It is also to be said that the proof
put forward by the prosecution was beyond reasonable doubt in tragic
circumstances, most especially, in the present situation, where the
perpetrator of this heinous, animalistic crime is an officer of the
Nigerian Police Force, who donned the uniform of state, not with pride
and dignity of a law enforcement personnel, but wore the uniform which
he was unworthy to be seen in.
“The circumstances are such that I see
no redeeming feature available to the appellant and therefore no basis
to either fault what the trial court and Court of Appeal did. Rather,
this court has no choice but to affirm the concurrent findings of the
two courts below, which were supported by the evidence on record and
nothing on which a deviation can be hung,” Justice Peter-Odili held. She subsequently dismissed the appeal
for lacking in merit and affirmed the conviction and sentencing of
Maigari to death by hanging. Justices
Mahmud Mohammed, Muhammad Saifullah Muntaka-Coomassie, Nwali Sylvester
Ngwuta and Olukayode Ariwoola, who equally participated in the hearing
of the appeal, agreed with the lead judgment.
