Man Sentenced To Death For Killing Wife

IG of Police

For failing to control his temper and moderate his actions, Mr. Habeeb Usman will have to die by hanging after he lost the appeal of the death sentence earlier passed on him by a Sokoto High Court, for killing his wife, Salamatu.

Usman, from Haragawa village in Illelah Local Government Area of Sokoto State was charged with killing his wife Salamatu Habibu by stabbing her with a knife in the neck.

It was a fit of anger, probably powered by envy that the wife wanted to marry someone else after their union had seemingly come to the end of their three-year-old matrimonial journey.

Before their relationship turned sour, Usman and Salamatu had contracted a marriage in 1992. But few years after, the marriage began to have several glitches and Salamatu was no longer comfortable in her marriage.

One day, on February 17, 1995, she left her matrimonial home purportedly to fetch water but proceeded to her parent’s home. And that was it. She was tired of the marriage and needed her freedom.  She had so made up her mind about it such that even when mediators came to reconcile the couple, the effort failed.

But Usman was unwilling to let go.  On March 11, 1995, Salamatu was attacked by her husband who stabbed her with a knife in her neck, which resulted in her death.

In a unanimous decision, five justices of the Supreme Court last Friday threw out an appeal filed by Usman and affirmed the conviction and death sentence passed on him by the Sokoto State High Court and the Court of Appeal. He was ordered to be killed by hanging.

The appellant was charged on May 16, 2006 before a Sokoto State High Court for culpable homicide punishable with death and was convicted by the court.

Dissatisfied, he appealed to the Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal, which on April 8, 2010, dismissed his appeal and affirmed the judgment of the high court.

Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Mary Ukaego Peter-Odili said that the judgments of the two lower courts could not be interfered with. She further held that even without the confessional statements of the accused person, there was circumstantial evidence to justify the conviction and sentencing.