By David Lawani
The Supreme Court on Friday nullified the Federal Government’s attempt to lessen the punishment imposed on Maryam Sanda, firmly restoring the death sentence earlier handed down for the killing of her husband, Bilyamin Bello.
Sanda, daughter-in-law to a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was sentenced to death on January 27, 2020, after the Abuja High Court found her guilty of stabbing Bello to death in their Abuja residence in 2017.
Having spent nearly six years and eight months at the Suleja Correctional Centre, President Bola Tinubu had exercised executive powers to commute her sentence to a 12-year prison term.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), justified her inclusion in the presidential pardon on “compassionate grounds and in the best interest of the children,” stressing her “good conduct, embraced a new lifestyle, model to prisoners and remorsefulness.”
But the Supreme Court, in a 4–1 majority decision, rejected that reprieve.
The five-person panel upheld the original capital punishment and dismissed all the issues Sanda raised in her challenge to her conviction.
In the lead judgment, Justice Moore Adumein held that the prosecution had established its case “beyond every reasonable doubt,” affirming that the Court of Appeal acted correctly in sustaining the trial court’s verdict.
The apex court also faulted the President’s intervention, ruling that the executive had overstepped its authority by seeking to extend clemency in a homicide matter still undergoing judicial scrutiny.
