The Supreme Court, on Friday, disregarded the clemency that President Bola Tinubu granted Maryam Sanda, daughter-in-law of a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and upheld the death sentence imposed on her for the brutal murder of her husband, Bilyamin Bello.
An Abuja High Court had sentenced Sanda to death by hanging on January 27, 2020, having found her guilty of fatally stabbing Bello, her husband, at their Maitama home in Abuja in 2017.
But after spending six years and eight months on the death row at the Suleja Correctional Centre, President Tinubu granted her clemency, and commuted her sentence to 12 years imprisonment.
Tinubu’s decision to commute her sentence triggered public anger, as did a few others, with many citizens wondering why the President would grant drug barons, murderers, and some career criminals clemency.
But the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Lateef Fagbemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, rose in stout defence of the presidential pardon granted Sanda, saying it was done “on compassionate grounds and in the best interest of the children.”
The AGF also emphasised that Sanda’s record of “good conduct, new lifestyle, model behaviour and remorsefulness” recommended her for mercy.
But the Supreme Court was not swayed by such argument on Friday as a five-member panel of the apex court, in a split decision of four to one, reinstated the original death sentence.
The court dismissed Sanda’s appeal in its entirety, ruling that she failed to show any error in the concurrent findings of the lower courts.
Justice Moore Adumein, who delivered the lead judgement, held that the prosecution proved the charge beyond reasonable doubt and that the Court of Appeal was right to affirm the conviction.
The Supreme Court also faulted Tinubu’s intervention, ruling that it was inappropriate for the Executive to grant clemency in a homicide case while an appeal was still pending.
With the decision, the death sentence earlier handed down to Sanda by the trial court stands.
