The Federal High Court in Asokoro has sentenced a 22-year-old cleaner, Maryam Adewumi, to 20 years imprisonment for stabbing her 35-year-old boyfriend, Shallom Oliseh, to death, NAN reports.
Adewumi was charged with culpable homicide punishable by death. However, Justice Njideka Nwosu-Iheme ruled that the prosecution had proven a lesser offence of culpable homicide not punishable by death.
“I find the defendant guilty of culpable homicide not punishable by death and hereby convict her,” the judge ruled.
Defence counsel, Williams Ataguba, urged the court to temper justice with mercy, noting that the convict had no previous criminal record. He also told the court that Adewumi is a mother of two whose children had been under the care of her grandmother before the elderly woman passed away, while both of her parents are also deceased.
Ataguba further appealed to the court to consider that she had already spent more than two years in detention and promised she would become a better person if given another chance.
Justice Nwosu-Iheme, however, sentenced Adewumi to 20 years imprisonment, effective from July 5, 2024, the day she was arrested.
Earlier, prosecuting counsel Adama Musa told the court that Adewumi engaged in a physical altercation with the deceased and stabbed him in the chest with a knife in Kurudu, Abuja, on July 5, 2024.
According to the prosecution, the stab wound caused severe bodily injuries that eventually led to Oliseh’s death, an outcome Adewumi allegedly knew was a probable consequence of her actions.
Musa added that the offence contravened Sections 220(a) and (b) of the Penal Code and is punishable under Section 221.
In her defence, Adewumi told the court that she acted in self-defence and had no intention of killing Oliseh.
