Justice For Hanifa, Umoren’s Families

Two murderers were recently sentenced to death by hanging in Kano and Akwa Ibom states. The first one is Abdulmalik Tanko, 38, a teacher who murdered his pupil, Hanifa Abubakar, on December 4, 2021 while the second is Uduak Akpan, 21, who was given the ultimate punishment for raping and murdering a female job seeker, Iniubong Umoren, in Akwa Ibom, in April 2021.

The Kano State High Court sentenced Tanko, the proprietor of Noble Kids College, Kano, to death by hanging for a crime that elicited public outrage from across the country.

Tanko kidnapped and killed Hanifa, a five-year-old pupil, on December 4, 2021, while she was returning from Islamiyya school and subsequently buried her in a shallow grave.
Tanko’s accomplices, Hashim Isyaku, 38, and Fatima Musa, were similarly prosecuted for criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, confinement, and culpable homicide. Like Tanko,

Isyaku received the death penalty for murder and kidnapping and five years for conspiracy. The third culprit, Fatima Musa, was sentenced to one-year imprisonment for conspiracy and another one year for an attempt to commit felony. Tanko had confessed to kidnapping and killing the victim with N100 rat poison before burying her in a shallow grave in one of his schools.

Tanko’s wickedness was accentuated by the fact that he was personally known to his victim’s family, was the proprietor of the school the child attended, and was one of the first persons to commiserate with the family when the girl was reported kidnapped and killed. On top of it, he collected ransom from her parents, yet he still went ahead to kill the innocent girl.
In the second case, Akpan was found guilty of premeditated murder and rape and sentenced to death and life imprisonment respectively for the two crimes. It was another case of pure evil conceived and executed by a young man to whom life means little or nothing. The judge, however, discharged and acquitted Akpan’s father and sister who had also been charged alongside the culprit.
Akpan’s victim, Umoren, a 26-year-old graduate of Philosophy from the University of Uyo, had gone missing on April 29, 2021, after she was lured out of her home in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State, with a fake job interview by Akpan. Luck, however, ran out on the murderer after his victim was able to send a distress communication to her friend, Uduak Umoh, through the social media messaging app, Whatsapp, who promptly called her on the phone and heard her screaming for help.
Miss Umoh promptly launched a social media search for the missing Umoren. The next day, on April 30, 2021, the police exhumed Umoren’s body from a shallow grave in Akpan’s family compound.

As a newspaper, we wish to commend the police authorities in Kano State and Akwa Ibom states for their quick and conclusive investigations and prosecution of the culprits leading to the guilty verdict handed to the murderers of Hanifa and Umoren. Very often, offenders go scot-free due to shoddy investigation and lazy prosecution of cases.
We also call on the governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, who had publicly pledged to sign the death warrant for Hanifa’s killers should they be found guilty as charged, that now that the court had done its task, the governor should not only go ahead to fulfil the promise but also ensure that Hanifa’s killers’ death warrant is effected as quickly as possible in order to send a clear message to other would-be murderers that the government would not condone such calculated waste of human life.
That would also go a long way in assuaging the parents, relatives and friends of Hanifa, and other Nigerians who were similarly hurt by such devious acts.
We make the same call to the governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel. The family of Iniubong Umoren will feel that justice has been fully served if her murderer faces his day at the gallows. The young man’s attitude throughout his trial and his attempted escape after his conviction show him as an unrepentant offender. After his conviction, he told the judge that ‘there are many assassinations in our country but nobody is doing anything about it.”

Another aspect of the Umoren case is the place of social media. Just like in the BRT passenger Bamise Ayanwola’s murder case in Lagos in March this year, Umoren was able to communicate her distress to her friend who quickly started a search for her whereabouts. This is a wake-up call to those who strike up relationships via social media and plan to have physical meetings with strangers. They should inform their loved ones of their whereabouts in case they run into trouble.