CBN manager, 1 other bag 30 years jail for murder

An FCT High Court in Maitama has sentenced a manager with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Tanko Abubakar and his friend to 30 years imprisonment each for murder.

The trial judge, Justice Yusuf Halilu, in his judgment on Thursday held that the prosecution had been able to convince the court beyond reasonable doubt that Abubakar, his wife Fatima (who is at large) and the friend, Jika Shehu, caused the death of one Aisha Dankaka in Feb. 2015 in contravention of Section 224 of the Penal Code. The court also ordered Abubakar to pay N3 million to the family of the deceased as compensation.

In the course of the trial, the prosecutor, Ekon Aniekong, had told the court while proving his case through the prosecution witnesses that Abubakar, his wife, and Shehu had beaten Dankaka to death over allegation that the deceased was a witch.

According to the evidence placed before the court, the deceased, a resident of Kaduna, met her death in Abuja when she went to deliver a message to one Hajiya Hawa Ishaq, a staff of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), who was a friend to Abubakar’s wife.

The court was told that Dankaka met Ishaq at Abubakar’s residence, where she delivered the message and that while there, Fatima requested the deceased to accompany her to Apo market to get some furniture.

While they were at the market, Fatima’s baby began to cry and when it became persistent, she accused Dankaka of bewitching the baby. When they got back home and the baby was still crying, Fatima called Dankaka into another room where she flogged her, demanding that she must confess to being a witch, the court was told.

The prosecutor said Fatima also called two of her housemaids who joined in beating the deceased until she lost consciousness. She was later said to have called her husband, who in turn invited Shehu and joined in the beating, using horsewhip, until Dankaka died.

The court was further told that to conceal the murder, Abubakar and his wife threatened to kill Ishaq, who witnessed the killing of Dankaka, if she told anyone. This, he said made Ishaq to lie to Dankaka’s family that she died after she was hit by a car along Kubwa expressway, Abuja.

However, in doubt of the narrative, the family members of the deceased were said to have carried out an investigation at the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) office in the area to confirm the veracity of the narrative, but were told no such accident was recorded during the time of enquiry.