By Kalu Onyemaechi
A 22-year-old rice farmer, Kabiru Zelani has been sentenced to death by hanging for overpowering his assailant, said to be a herder.
According to SaharaReporters, Zelani reportedly used his attacker’s assault dagger to stab him to death during an invasion of his farmland on October 18, 2015 in the state.
He had overpowered the herder, identified as Ardo Ali and stabbed him to death in a bid to avoid getting killed himself.
Zelani, a resident of Leme village in the Gombi local government area, was said to have stabbed Ali to death during a fight over the destruction of his (Zelani) rice farm.
Zelani had narrated that “while working on my rice farm on 18th October, 2015, the deceased came and put his animals on my rice farm. When I saw that the animals were destroying the crops, I confronted the herder; so he became provoked.
“The herder used his cutlass and struck me on my right hand, the evidence of which could be seen here, a scar, showing serious injury, and that he also pulled out his knife and tried to stab me, but I (Zelani) fell the herder on the ground.”
The convict, who has been standing trial for more than 5 years, was on Tuesday handed a death sentence and would be hanged for stabbing an intruding herder, Ali, to death.
Justice Fatimah Ahmed Tafida of the High Court IV, sitting in Yola, the state capital, convicted Zelani, after he was tried and found guilty of culpable homicide punishable by death contrary to section 221(b) of the state penal code law.
The judge declared that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and that “the court hereby sentences you, Kabiru Zelani, to death by hanging until certified dead by a medical doctor”.
The President Muhammadu Buhari-led regime is widely viewed as providing cover for Fulani herdsmen who have been notorious for invading farmlands with their cattle and destroying crops.
