The Adamawa State High Court on Wednesday handed down a 21-year prison term for murder to a 32-year-old man.
The court found Nuhu Pius guilty on one count of the indictment and sentenced him to 21 years in jail, Justice Maxwell T. Pukuma, the presiding judge, stated in his ruling at a hearing in Ganye, the administrative center of Ganye Local Government Area.
Justice Pukuma decided that the sentence began to run on the day the defendant was placed on remand and that a fine was not an option.
The defendant entered a not guilty plea when he was arraigned in court on April 14, 2022, for culpable homicide. After conducting a trial inside a trial, the prosecution then called four witnesses to the stand who gave testimony in court and offered a confessional statement.
The prosecution claims that around December 7, 2019, at a tea shop in the Trigali village of Ganye, Nuhu killed a man named Gabriel Solomon.
The prisoner and another man had clashed. But when the person who was trying to separate them struck him in the head with a stick, the prisoner, in an effort to avenge his (Gabriel’s) death, stabbed him with a knife.
Obidah N. Oliver, the convict’s attorney, expressed appreciation for the decision and said he will meet with his client to decide whether to appeal the sentence.