Justice For Ummukulsum

At last, a Kano state High court has sentenced 47-year-old Chinese national, Frank Geng-Quangrong, to death by hanging for the gruesome murder of his 22-year-old Nigerian girlfriend, Ummukulsum Sani. We recall that the Kano Police command arrested Geng – Quangrong and charged him for culpable homicide after compelling evidence showed that he murdered Miss Sani with whom he had relationship, at her residence in Janbulo quarters, Kumbotso LGA of Kano, in September 2022.

As should be  expected, condemnation trailed Miss Sani’s murder in Kano and other parts of the country with most Nigerians demanding that the culprit face full wrath of the law. Good enough, the Kano state government did the needful by ensuring diligent prosecution of the matter.

During the trial, Geng-Quangrong claimed he killed his estranged girlfriend in self-defence but the trial judge, Justice Sanusi Ado-Maaji described his testimonies and evidence as inconsistent. He, accordingly, dismissed same and  pronounced death sentence on the accused.

Geng-Quangrong was sentenced for acting in ways that contravenes section 221(b) of the Kano Penal Code Law.

With the trial judge’s verdict, it can be said without any iota of doubt that justice has not only been done, but has manifestly been seen to have been done. Even though the judgement cannot bring Miss Sani, it will provide some form of consolation for her family that the killer has been served justice.

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Fundamentally, the reaction that followed the court’s verdict not only in Kano but in some states across the country showed that Nigerians were impressed with the prompt manner with which the Kano state government handled the matter.

In Geng-Quangrong’s China, death penalty is applicable to offenses ranging from murder to drug trafficking and those found wanting are executed by lethal injection or shooting. Therefore, coming from China where capital punishment gets widespread support among the populace, the convict knows very well the implication of his action. Good enough, he got what he rightly deserved.

As a newspaper, we applaud the judge for this expeditious judgement and urge the Kano state governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf whose responsibility it is to give the final nod before execution, to do that without hesitation. The governor should, once the convict exhausts all windows for appeal, not waste time in signing the death warrant. Anyone who kills loses the right to life, pure and simple.

But even as we commend this decisive capital punishment verdict on the Chinese, it is trite to take a look at the execution of death row inmates in the country. How has Nigeria fared as far as execution of death row inmates is concerned?

Available records indicate that about 3,298 persons are on death row in the country. Quangrong will make an addition to the list. Unfortunately, death sentences are rarely carried out in Nigeria. This has got to change.

We are tempted to believe that the state governor’s reluctance to approve execution of convicts has greatly frustrated the implementation of capital punishment with the repercussions being that it emboldens killers to murder with reckless abandon.

It is on record that some states enacted laws that not only criminalizes kidnapping but provides for capital punishment for kidnappers, especially those who kidnap and kill their victims.

However, due to political expediency, governors have been very reluctant to sign death warrants.Since 2012, no governor has signed death warrants even though the nation has one of the most congested prisons in the world with some of the inmates being on death row.

Governors must set aside whatever sentiments they nurse and do the needful by signing death warrants especially when such emanates from a murder-based prosecution like that of Quangrong.

We are against abolitionists and others who have been consistent in championing an end to the death penalty because we believe very strongly that the movement is unjust and clearly supports injustice. Every life matters hence, anyone who kills should be killed.

As for the Chinese national, he deserves the faith that befalls him and should take it in good fate. His claim of self-defence is too pedantic, puerile, infantile and utterly baseless. In fact, it is an afterthought and in dismissing it, the judge did a very commendable work.