Court sentences police corporal to death by hanging for killing three year old

An Ikeja High Court in Lagos on Thursday sentenced an ex-police corporal, Ikechukwu Nwabueze, to death by hanging for killing a three- year-old girl, Kasufara Muritala. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Justice Olabisi Akinlade found the 35-year-old former policeman guilty of the murder charge preferred against him. 

Mrs. Olabisi Ogungbesan, the Director of Public Prosecution, said that Nwabueze on April 5, 2009 at a police check-point at Ketu-Alapere, Lagos, shot at a Nissan Sunny car conveying the deceased and her parents. Ogungbesan said that the incident occurred at Obanle Aro bus stop, Ketu-Alarape at about 9.30p.m when Kasufara and her parents were returning from a naming ceremony. The father of the deceased, Saliu Muritala, was hit on his hand while the little girl, who was sitting on the back seat with her mother, was shot in the head.

The DPP said the five policemen from Alarepe Police Station, including Nwabueze, fled from the check-point after the father came out of the car with the lifeless body of the deceased. The defendant in his confessional statement to the police after his arrest, had admitted shooting at the rear of the car but not with the intent to kill the deceased.


The judge dismissed an appeal by Nwabueze’s counsel, Mr A.O. Omodele, for the court to temper justice with mercy and be lenient in its sentence. She noted that the defendant had murdered the little girl in cold blood, stressing that it was a clear example of recklessness being perpetrated by policemen on innocent citizens.

She added, “Only God knows what, Kasufara Muritala, would have become in future. I hope members of the Nigerian Police will learn a lesson from him and stop extra-judicial killings. “The sentence of the court upon you Nwabueze is that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.” I seriously hope other trigger happy policemen learn from this example.