Hanifa: Court fixes July 28 for judgement

Tanko, the school proprietor who murdered five-year-old pupil, Hanifa Abubakar in Kano

Kano State High Court has fixed July 28, 2022, to deliver judgement in the case of a school proprietor, Abdulmalik Tanko, and two others for allegedly kidnapping and killing 5-year-old pupil, Hanifa Abubakar, in the state.

The presiding judge, Justice Usman Na’abba, fixed the date on Tuesday after the defence and prosecution counsel adopted their final written addresses.

Kano State Government had arraigned Abdulmalik Tanko, Hashimu Isyaku and Fatima Jibrin before Kano High Court for criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, keeping in confinement an abducted person and culpable homicide contrary to sections 97, 274, 277, 221 of the penal code.

Prosecution counsel, Barr. Lamido Abba Soron Dinki, said they pray for death penalty for the trio of Mr Tanko, Mr Isyaku, and Mrs Jibrin.

“We urge the court to pass death sentence on all the defendants because the punishment of those sections under which they are all charged carried the same punishment of death penalty,”he said.

The principal suspect, Tanko, who once pleaded guilty earlier to the three-count charges before making u-turn to plead not guilty to the culpable homicide, had earlier confessed to have poisoned her with a N100 rat poison and burying her in a shallow grave in one of his school premises.

It would be recalled that Abubakar was abducted on December 4, 2021, on her way home from school and was a ubsequently discovered to have been killed.

The Star