Court sentences ritualist to death

A Kogi State High Court sitting in Koto- nkarfe, Kogi local government area, on Monday sentenced a ritualist, Ibrahim Mohammed, to death by hanging over the murder of two brothers.

He was accused of first poisoning the brothers, Muhammed Kudu Abubakar and Umar Tanko to weaken them and thereafter hit them on the head with pestle to kill them.

The accused, who was said to have committed the offence in January 2016 later buried their corpses in a shallow grave in his compound.

Delivering judgement, Justice Alaba, Omoleye-Ajileye, said the accused was found guilty of the charges preferred against him and should therefore be hanged.

The two count charge reads ” That you, Ibrahim Muhammed on or about the 10th day of January, 2016 at Kugbani village in Kogi Local Government Area within the Kogi state judicial division, robbed Tanko Abubakar of his Toyota Carina E Wangon with registration number BDA 902AA and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 298(a) of the penal code.

“That you, Ibrahim Muhammed on or about January 10, 2016 at Kugbani village in Kogi local government Area within the Kogi State judicial division, did commit culpable homicide punishable with death by doing an act to wit: you killed Tanko Abubakar by hitting him on the head with a pestle with the intention of killing him and you thereby committed an offence punishable under section 221(a) of the penal code.

Delivering his judgment, the Judge said, “Sometimes ago, two brothers of the same father, Mohammed. Kudu Abubakar and Tanko  Umar Abubakar set out on a  journey with the hope of returning home and indeed gave a word to their family members to return on a particular day.

“But the journey turned tragic and bizarre. It became a journey of no return. The outcome of the journey was the exhumation of their bodies on the compound of the accused”.

Omolaye- Ajileye added “The facts of robbery in the case flows from the facts of established and already accepted by the court in respect of the second and third heads of charge.

“With all the pieces of evidence presented by the prosecution: The exhumation of the bodies of Tanko and Mohammed from the compound of the accused, I hold that after poisoning the two brothers as the accused confessed, in his downright criminality, he hit their heads with pestle to hasten their annihilation.

“And in order to avoid any trace of his brutal and inhuman act, the accused buried the dead bodies of Tanko and Mohammed in his compound. Unfortunately since nothing is hidden under the sky, nemesis caught up with him.

“By your own word, after poisoning both Tanko and Mohammed and refused to die, you used a pestle to hit them in their heads. That was a brutal homicide committed with determination and ruthlessness. The manner you committed it, by your own description, makes it a high level of exceptional wickedness that it can only be properly narked by death sentence, which the only sentence I can pass on you.”