Court Sentences Farmer to Death For Killing Herdsman in Self Defence

A High Court has sentenced a farmer to death by hanging for overpowering and killing his assailant, an herdsman.

Kabiru Zelani, a 22-year-old rice farmer was said to have overpowered the herder identified as Ardo Ali, and used his (Ali’s) assault dagger to stab him to death during an invasion of his farmland on October 18, 2015 in Adamawa state.

Zelani was said to have been standing trial for more than 5 years, and was on Tuesday handed a death sentence for stabing the intrudging herder, Ali, to death.

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Zelani had narrated that:

“while working on my rice farm on 18th October, 2015, the deceased came and put his animals on my rice farm. When I saw that the animals were destroying the crops, I confronted the herder; so he became provoked.

“The herder used his cutlass and struck me on my right hand, the evidence of which could be seen here, a scar, showing serious injury, and that he also pulled out his knife and tried to stab me, but I (Zelani) fell the herder on the ground.”

Justice Fatimah Ahmed Tafida of the High Court IV, sitting in Yola, the state capital, convicted Zelani, after finding him guilty of homicide, which is punishable by death contrary to section 221(b) of the state penal code law.

The judge declared that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and that “the court hereby sentences you, Kabiru Zelani, to death by hanging until certified dead by a medical doctor.”

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