Deborah Yakubu killers are to be sentenced to death

“….The Islamic religion is not a primitive religion that allows its adherents to take the law into their own hands and to commit jungle justice. Instead, there is a judicial system in Islamic law that hears and determines cases including the trial of criminal offenses and anybody accused of committing an offense against the religion or against a fellow Muslim brother should be taken to the court (either a Sharia or a secular/common law court) for adjudication. It is only when a person is convicted and sentenced by a court of law that he will be liable to a punishment which will be carried out by an appropriate authority (i.e. the prison)”

~His Lordship I. T. Muhammad JSC (now CJN) in the case of SHALLA VS STATE (2007) LPELR-3034(SC).

In July 1999, in the Kardi village of Kebbi State, one Abdullah was accused of blasphemy; insulting the prophet Muhammad, he was reported to some Muslim faithful who formed a mob and decided to attack the accused, they dealt him blows with sticks, bottles and even machete, till they hacked him to death. 

The mobsters (about five of them) were later arrested and charged to court for the offense of murder and culpable homicide of Abdullah in the Kebbi State High Court. 

Their defense was that they have justification for the killing of Abdullah (religious justification), pointing to the sections of the Quran that demand that anybody who insults the prophet MUHAMMED should be killed. 

They were convicted of murder and sentenced to die by hanging in the trial court. They appealed to the Appellate court and the appeal court upheld the judgment of the trial court and they further appealed to the Supreme Court. 

The case went on from the lower courts till it got to the supreme in 2007 and the Supreme Court upheld the judgments of the lower courts. In one of the dictums of one of the justices, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, (who is now the Chief Justice of Nigeria); he states thus; 

“In my view, it is the appellants rather than the deceased who committed an offense against Islamic or Sharia by their unjustified action which represents to the public that Sharia is an uncivilized and primitive system that allows or permits the killing of people without complying with the due process of law, the Islamic religion is not a primitive religion that allows its adherents to take the law into their own hands and to commit jungle justice. Instead, there is a judicial system in Islamic law that hears and determines cases including the trial of criminal offenses and anybody accused of committing an offense against the religion or against a fellow Muslim brother should be taken to the court (either a Sharia or a secular/common law court) for adjudication. It is only when a person is convicted and sentenced by a court of law that he will be liable to a punishment which will be carried out by an appropriate authority (i.e. the prison)”.

The Justices of the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the judgments of the lower courts stating that the accused persons committed the offense of murder and culpable homicide which carries the capital punishment of death sentence. They were all; every one of them that partook in the killing of Abdullah were sentenced to death. 

On this note, those that are justifying the killing of Deborah Yakubu on the ground that the killers are carrying out what their religion requires them to do should educate themselves that everyone that is involved in the death of Deborah Yakubu has committed the offense of murder and culpable homicide and stating categorically from the judicial precedent in the case of SHALLA V State, they will all be sentenced to death and their religion will not come to their rescue.