Final-year university student, 5 others sentenced to death

A Yola High Court has sentenced a 500-level Student of Moddibo Adama University (MAU), Yola, and five others to death by hanging for armed robbery.

The high court, presided by Justice Abdulazeez Waziri, convicted the six for conspiracy and armed robbery and gave them the maximum sentence, saying he has no option under the law to treat them any less.

The student, Munbe Bala, who is of the Department of Mathematics and Education of the university in Girei, Yola, was convicted alongside a former staff of Nigeria Communications Satellite, Abuja, Afu Stephen and the quartet of Peter Eli, Hassan Yusuf, Bobi Mabudi and Emmanuel Kenneth.

The six were arraigned before the court on the charges of conspiracy and armed robbery, to which they subsequently pleaded not guilty.

The prosecution thereafter called eight witnesses and tendered six documents which were admitted as exhibits.

The specific claims of the prosecution were that the suspects had on 29th and 31st of August, 2015 respectively in Boshikiri town, Guyuk Local Government Area mounted an illegal road block on a bridge along Lafiya-Savannah Sugar Company Ltd.

It was established that the six, while armed with offensive weapons, mounted the road block with drums and stones and robbed travellers of their belongings.

The court said the convicts had formed a common intention to commit robbery while wearung mitary uniform and armed with single barrel guns and locally made pistols, cutlasses, and knives.

In their confessional statements, the convicts mentioned how they first blocked the road on the 29th August, 2015 when they stopped a Toyota starlet coming from Gombe State and robbed the occupants of six mobile phones and got N9,500 which they shared N1,500 each.

They added that on the 31st August, 2015 at 10:00pm, they went back to the same spot fully armed and blocked the road again, whereby the drivers of three trucks conveying cement, banana and stock fish abandoned their vehicles and fled upon seeing them, and that they searched the vehicles and realised N11,200 and four handsets.

They added that on their way back home, they met with members of a vigilante group who fired gunshots twice, and that they ran inside a maize farm but were caught the next day.