A Federal High Court sitting in the Asokoro Division of Abuja has sentenced a 22-year-old cleaner, Maryam Adewumi, to 20 years imprisonment for stabbing her boyfriend, 35-year-old trader Shallom Oliseh, to death during a violent altercation in the Kurudu area of the Federal Capital Territory.

Adewumi was initially arraigned on a charge of culpable homicide punishable by death under sections 220(a), (b) and 221 of the Penal Code. Prosecutors from the Federal Ministry of Justice alleged that she stabbed Oliseh in the chest with a kitchen knife during a dispute in the one-room apartment they shared, inflicting a deep wound that led to massive internal bleeding and his eventual death.

Delivering judgment, Justice Njideka Nwosu-Iheme held that the prosecution, led by counsel Adama Musa, had proved that Adewumi caused the fatal injury and knew that death was a probable consequence of her action. The court, however, found that the evidence did not support the higher threshold required for culpable homicide punishable by death.

“I find the defendant guilty of culpable homicide not punishable with death and convict her,” Justice Nwosu-Iheme ruled, explaining that while the stabbing was intentional, the circumstances did not establish the degree of premeditation and malice required for the maximum penalty.

During allocutus, defence counsel Williams Ataguba pleaded for leniency, stressing that Adewumi had no prior criminal record and is a mother of two young children. He told the court that the children had been in the care of their great-grandmother until her recent death and that both of Adewumi’s parents were deceased, leaving the minors without immediate family support.

Ataguba further argued that his client had already spent more than two years in detention awaiting trial and maintained that she acted in self-defence during a fight that escalated beyond her control. Adewumi herself told the court she did not intend to kill Oliseh and only reached for the knife out of fear.

The judge acknowledged the plea but held that the gravity of taking a human life required a substantial custodial sentence. Adewumi was consequently sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, with the term ordered to run from the date of her arrest.