Court Sentences 3 Women To Death For Selling 3 Kids For N1.1M

The Akwa Ibom State High Court sitting in Uyo, the State capital at the weekend finally ended a protracted legal battle in the case of kidnappings and selling of unsuspecting children by a syndicate, and sentenced the ring leaders, three women to death, for stealing three children in Uyo, and selling them off to clients in neighbouring Aba, Abia State for N1.1m.

They were condemned to die by hanging by the presiding Judge, Justice Gabriel Ette, who found them guilty of conspiracy and kidnapping punishable by death under Section 1, of the Akwa Ibom State Internal Security and Enforcement Law, 2009.

Narrating her journey to the end of the road, one of the condemned kidnappers, Enobong Nsikak Sunday, a 38 year-old mother of two, from Atiamkpat in Nsit Ubium Local Government Area, that she kidnapped a two-year girl she met at a vigil in Ifa Atai community in Uyo, “looking poor and hungry,” and capitalized on her condition to lure her.

According to the convict, “I trailed the mother and child to their house in Ifa Atai, and deceived her that I wants to take the child to a hospital for treatment. On the way, I stopped and gave the mother of the child N5,000 to buy foodstuffs at the nearby Transformer Junction Market along Abak Road, Uyo, but she refused.”

After the first failed attempt, she said she went back to the woman’s house where she successfully seized the poor child.

The second convict, Gertrude Thompson Akpan, a 48 year-old native of Ikot Eyo, also In the same Nsit Ubium LGA, said she made a profit of N500,000 per child she kidnaps, and N200,000 for those brought to her for sale.

The last business which landed her in prison and subsequent death sentence, our Correspondent gathered from the particulars of the case, was two children, aged two years and 10 months, she kidnapped on 16th December, 2018 at Abak Road, Uyo, after deceiving their mother that the wife of the immediate past Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Dr. Martha Udom Emmanuel, was empowering the poor and that she would take her to the First Lady for help.

The third convict in the syndicate, Mary Okon James, 49, a native of Obotim village in Nsit Ibom LGA, would also die by hanging, for buying one of the kidnapped children at N200,000 and resold at N500,000 in Aba, Abia State, netting a profit of N300,000.

However, the trial judge, Justice Ette, pointed out that “the confessional statements of the accused persons link each other and firmly established the fact that they constitute a sophisticated syndicate for their infamous trade.”

The Court, therefore, held that “for a woman to have gone to that extent, it means she has sealed her conscience with a hot iron, and thereby become a threat to civilized society as every child is her potential victim,” and declared: “You have, by your conduct, disqualified yourself from continuing to walk free in organzied society as every child is your potential victim.”

Sealing the judgement and hope for life for the convict, the Court decreed their extermination: “Mary Okon Bassey, a native of Obotim village in Nsit Ibom LGA, it is your claim that you joined the trade of kidnapping and selling other people’s children in January, 2017. You also claimed to have sold two female children at Aba, Abia State, before nemesis caught up with you. This, you did with no human empathy and not minding what fate awaits your innocent victims and what arrow you have caused to pierce the hearts of their hapless parents. You did this so you may live big and comfortable.”

“How did you feel when you took two children from the same mother in your journey to selling them off for filthy lucre? You had caused your innocent victims sleepless nights, though providence smiled on her for her children to be recovered. You are a pest to society and not fit to walk the earth like a free woman again ever. You, in your life time chose to walk the pathway of crime and today, you will reap your reward. Those who murder sleep, do not deserve to dream. I find you guilty and the sentence of this Court on you is that you be hanged on your neck until you be dead and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”