Boko Haram: Suleja bombers bag life sentence

An Abuja Federal High Court, presided over by Justice Bilkisu Aliyu, yesterday convicted and sentenced four men to life imprisonment on terrorism charges and for participating in bombings in Suleja, Niger State, and Dakna village in Bwari in 2011.  The jailed men are: Salisu Ahmed, Umar Babagana  Shuaibu Abubakar and Mohammed Ali. The court held that the four persons convicted were found guilty of terrorism offences preferred against them by the Federal Government. The Federal Government had alleged that the convicted men perpetrated terrorism related crimes ranging from illegal training in arms, transportation of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), participating in terrorism activities and bombings.
The bombings included the ones in Suleja and Bwari in which scores of innocent lives were lost at a political rally and at the offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Suleja and Dakna. In the course of the trial of the convicts, the court was told that Abubakar and Ahmed had at different times procured materials (cortex and electronic detonators) for making IEDs from Azara in Nasarawa State.
The court was also told that Babagana and Ali accompanied Abubakar while he was transporting the IEDs to Kano for terrorist activities before being arrested and detained by the Army in Kachia, Kaduna State. Abubakar, however, refuted the allegation, arguing that they were meant for mining activities, while admitting that he was yet to secure a parcel of land to carry out his proposed mining extraction. However, the trial judge, in her judgement, held that the prosecution counsel had proved his case beyond every reasonable doubt that Abubakar was found in possession of the IEDs and was transporting them for terrorist activities. “The place for the mining is at Azara where the materials were bought from. The logical question to ask is, why were the mining materials moved far away from the mining site?” the Judge asked. The court said that Abubakar failed to adduce any substantive and acceptable answer as to why he was transporting the materials in the middle of the night before he was apprehended by security agents.
Consequently, Justice Aliyu ordered that Umar Ibrahim be put behind bars for 10 years for what the court termed as “aiding terrorist activities.” In the same vein, Ibrahim, brother to Bashir Madalla, one of the kingpins of the terror group said to have trained some of the convicts in the use of arms and weaponry aimed at retaliating the death of their members in Yobe and Borno states, ran errands for his brother.  But Musa Adamu, the fifth accused person was discharged and acquitted by the court. According to the judgement, no evidence was tendered before the court linking Adamu to the charges preferred against him by the Federal Government. In addition, the court held that the Honda Civic car which was admitted in evidence would be forfeited to the Federal Government and other exhibits (200 IEDs and 2 roles of cortex) before the court will be released to appropriate authorities for destruction after the time for appeal lapses. Earlier, their counsel, Kevin Okoro and Nuraini Sulyman, had begged the court to temper justice with mercy, but prosecuting counsel, Thompson Olatigbe, objected and pleaded the court to give them a life sentence.
The convicted persons were arraigned on a five-count charge in 2011 over the April 8, 2011 bombing of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Suleja, Niger State, where 16 people lost their lives and several others sustained varying degrees of injury. They were also charged with the July 10, 2011 explosions at the All Christians Fellowship, Suleja, which claimed three lives and several others injured, as well as the March 3, 2011 explosion at a political rally in Suleja, where three people died. They were also tried over the May 23, 2011 explosion in Dakina village, Bwuari, Abuja, where three policemen were killed.  They were equally charged with engaging in illegal training in weapon handling and unlawful possession of weapons for the purpose of engaging in terrorism. They were all charged under Section 15(2) and (3) of the Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) Act.
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