Akwa Ibom State High Court sitting in Uyo, the state capital, has sentenced a 30-year-old man, Joshua Okon Archibong, to death by hanging for killing a police officer and other persons.
He was involved in a series of violent crimes including murder, armed robbery and kidnapping along the waterways of Uruan and Oron local government areas.
Archibong, a native of Ekpene Ibia in Uruan LGA, belonging to a notorious gang of sea pirates, was convicted on a four-count charge bordering on conspiracy and armed robbery.
He was nabbed during one of his operations in Ndon Ebom village, Uruan, where he alongside two others, Udeme and Isaac, now at large robbed motorcyclists and road users, one of whom raised the alarm which attracted the villagers who arrested him while his gang members fled.
The incident occurred on November 4, 2019.
Popularly known as “Benji Kasiah,” the convict, who is a primary school dropout, had confessed in his extrajudicial statement to participating in an attack in February 2019 on a boat ferrying passengers, rice and fish from Adadia Beach, and in April 2019.
During another operation at Akpa Inne waterways, the gang shot two vigilante members from Esuk Odu village who attempted to confront them.
Archibong revealed that the gang maintained hideouts in Inne Emman village and Ufak Ibuot Creek in Uruan, where they stored stolen goods and held kidnapped victims, including an expatriate abducted at a construction site in Mbiaya Uruan.
He also confessed to the murder of a Police Sergeant, and the kidnapping of two individuals, for whom they collected a ransom of N200,000 in December 2018.
The convict admitted to shooting a boat driver on August 15, 2019 at Ufak Ibuot Waterways for refusing to stop the vessel, an action which resulted in a stray bullet killing a pregnant woman onboard.
He also disclosed that he sought spiritual protection from a native doctor in Oku Iboku, Itu local government area, to evade police arrest.
Relying on the confessional statements, the presiding judge, Justice Bassey Nkanang, held that “the prosecution had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt and found Archibong guilty of murder and armed robbery and declared that Mr Archibong be hanged by the neck until he is dead or by lethal injection.
