Court sentences 36-year-old man to death for kidnapping in A’Ibom

Ini Billie, Uyo

The Akwa Ibom State High Court 1, Uyo, on Monday sentenced one Monday Joshua Okon to death over the kidnap of a 3-year-old girl from her school.

The presiding judge, Justice Okon Okon, in his judgment, found the accused guilty and ordered that Okon die by hanging, while his accomplice, 44-year-old Cecilia Ebong, an indigene of Ikot Offiong Nsit in Nsit Ibom LGA, was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

“It is unfortunate and depressing that people still indulge in callous trade of human persons particularly children despite efforts by the government to stem the ugly trend.

“The recourse to child buying and selling is appalling and indefensible and no punishment will be excessive to deter people from such proclivity tendency.

“The sentence of the court upon you, Monday Joshua Okon, is that you be hanged by the neck until you be dead and may God have mercy on your soul,” the judge said in his judgement.

Okon said he kidnapped the pupil on July 20, 2018, during a graduation party in her school in Mbierebe Obio, Ibesikpo Asutan local government area of the state for sale in Aba, Abia State.

According to the condemned criminal, he kept his victim in his house in Ibesikpo Asutan for three days, until his wife prevailed on him to return the girl to where he picked her from, but he disregarded the advice of his wife.

He stated, however, that he became unlucky when on their way to Akwa Ibom Transport Corporation (AKTC) park, on July 24, 2018, a good Samaritan saw the child covered with a clothe inside a tricycle at the Aka Road-IBB roundabout in Uyo and raised the alarm.

He said the alarm led to his arrest alongside Cecilia Thompson Ebong, his accomplice, who claimed to be the grandmother of the victim and helped him hold the child inside the tricycle they boarded to the AKTC park, where his victim was to be transported to Aba for a standby child buyer.

Okon, a married man with two children, and an indigene of Ekpene Ukpan in Nsit Ibom LGA confessed that he was to deliver the child to a 42-year-old woman, Charity Nwachukwu, whom he said he previously sold a male child to in 2017 and received N50,000 as his percentage.