An Ekiti State High Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti has sentenced a 37-year-old woman, Deborah Ayeni, to 14 years in prison for stealing a newborn baby, after she failed to appear in court during her trial.

Justice Lekan Olatawura, who delivered the judgment yesterday, also declared Ayeni a fugitive and ordered security agencies to apprehend her.

The court further sentenced her father and another surety to six months’ imprisonment each for failing to produce her in court as required under the bail conditions.

Justice Olatawura directed the court registrar to forward copies of the judgment and a letter declaring Ayeni a fugitive to the Comptroller-General of Customs, the Nigeria Police and the media to facilitate her arrest.

He ordered that Ayeni’s 14-year sentence should begin from the day she is apprehended.

The judge had earlier revoked the bail granted to Ayeni after she repeatedly failed to appear in court to answer to the charge against her.

Ayeni was first arraigned on September 1, 2025, on a one-count charge of child stealing. She pleaded not guilty.

According to the prosecution, led by Ibironke Odetola, Ayeni committed the offence on August 4, 2025, in Ado-Ekiti, when she allegedly stole a newborn baby belonging to Mustapher Aliu and his wife, Falmata.

Odetola told the court that Ayeni was arrested and detained at the Correctional Centre in Ado-Ekiti before being granted bail in the sum of N2 million, with two sureties required to enter recognisance in the same amount.

The prosecutor said the prosecution called four witnesses during the trial, but Ayeni disappeared while the third witness was being called.

She said Ayeni had told her counsel, Stephen Ademuagun, that she had been kidnapped along the road, after which she stopped appearing in court.

Odetola said Ayeni’s father, who was one of her sureties, appeared in court once and told the judge that his daughter was at home when he was asked about her whereabouts.

The prosecutor said investigations revealed that Ayeni had allegedly lost a pregnancy around May 2025 and, fearing that the development could affect her marriage, told her husband, who lives abroad, that she was pregnant and due to give birth.

According to her, Ayeni invited her husband to Nigeria for the purported delivery and used clothes wrapped around her stomach to make him believe she was pregnant.

“She thereafter went to a hospital in the Okeyinmi area of Ado-Ekiti and stole the baby from the complainants,” Odetola told the court.

She said Ayeni later handed the baby to a midwife for care after telling her husband that she had buried the placenta.

The midwife, according to the prosecutor, became suspicious of Ayeni’s conduct and alerted the police, leading to her arrest.

Odetola said the stolen child was subsequently rescued alive by the police.

The prosecutor said the offence contravened Section 292 of the Criminal Law of Ekiti State, 2021.

A High Court sitting in Lokoja has sentenced a 24-year-old man, Dahiru Yusuf Abbah, to death by hanging for killing his father, Dahiru Yusuf, in the Sarkin-Noma area of Lokoja.

Delivering judgement on Monday, the presiding judge, Justice M.M. Gwatana, found the defendant guilty of culpable homicide punishable with death under Section 221 of the Kogi State Penal Code, 2019.

The judge held that the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally inflicted fatal injuries on his father, leading to his death.

The incident occurred on October 5, 2024, after which the defendant was arrested and arraigned on a two-count charge of culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy under Sections 221 and 97(1) of the Kogi State Penal Code, 2019 (as amended), in case No. HCL/01C/2025.

Prosecution counsel, Barrister M. Abaji, told the court in his written address that the defendant stabbed his father in the chest and back during the attack.

He said the victim was confirmed dead at a hospital on October 9, 2024, from injuries sustained in the attack.

During the trial, the prosecution called nine witnesses, including the deceased’s wife, Hajia Jumai Dahiru (PW1), and the defendant’s siblings, Nafisat Dahiru (PW2) and Auwwal Dahiru (PW3).

It also tendered nine exhibits, including the defendant’s blood-stained shirt (Exhibit P12A), the deceased’s blood sample (Exhibit P12B), a knife (Exhibit P11), a digital forensic report (Exhibit P14) and a CD analysis (Exhibit P15C).

The court noted that the defendant did not call any witness in his defence, except an Islamic cleric who testified on inheritance, which the court dismissed as irrelevant.

“This is a case of culpable homicide, not an inheritance case,” the court held.

The three other persons mentioned by the defendant — a tea seller, Mai Shai, Aunty Ladidi and Danladi — who could have established his alibi for the night of the incident, did not appear to testify.

Justice Gwatana said that in a criminal trial, an offence could be established through direct evidence, such as an eyewitness account, a confessional statement or circumstantial evidence.

He said that under Sections 221 and 97(1) of the Penal Code, the prosecution was required to establish its case with credible evidence.

The judge noted that although none of the nine witnesses saw the defendant stabbing his father, the prosecution had established the case through circumstantial evidence beyond reasonable doubt.

He said Exhibit P12, the defendant’s blood-stained clothes, together with the testimonies of PW1, PW2 and PW3, provided more than 80 per cent of the evidence required to establish the case.

Justice Gwatana ruled: “The prosecution has successfully proved the case of culpable homicide against the defendant,” and consequently found him guilty as charged.

The court, however, dismissed the charge of criminal conspiracy for lack of evidence.

In his final ruling, Justice Gwatana sentenced the defendant to death by hanging for killing his father.

Reacting to the judgement, defence counsel, Mohammed S. Inuwa and Mohammed S. Maihaja, commended the judgement but said their client would appeal, arguing that the judge “relied on inadmissible evidence to arrive at the determination of guilt.”

The head of the deceased’s family, Yusuf Bala, welcomed the judgement, saying justice had been done.

“We have nothing against the defendant, but we wanted justice to be done to serve as a deterrent to others,” he said.

Amnesty International Nigeria has decried the prolonged captivity of 42 schoolchildren abducted in Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno State, 144 days after they were taken.

In a Tuesday statement titled “Nigeria: Borno’s Forgotten Children”, the rights group recalled that the pupils of Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School were abducted by gunmen on May 15, 2026, and have remained in captivity since then.

Amnesty noted that more abductions have occurred across the north since then and warned that Nigeria is failing its children.

“No child should go through what children are going through now in Nigeria. Education should not be a matter of life and death for anyone. Nigeria is failing children once again in a horrifying manner,” the organisation said in the statement posted on Facebook.

Amnesty argued that the future of thousands of schoolchildren in northern Nigeria remains bleak as hundreds of schools in some states have been closed indefinitely due to rising insecurity.

Many children, it said, have abandoned education due to psychological trauma from witnessing violent attacks or living in captivity.

Amnesty called on the Federal Government to intensify efforts to safely rescue all schoolchildren in captivity and to hold suspected perpetrators to account.

The May 15 incident was one of two major school abductions in Askira Uba LGA this year.

On June 29, gunmen invaded Government Day Secondary School, Lassa, while students were writing their National Examinations Council (NECO) examinations and abducted 36 students comprising 25 girls and 11 boys.

The two incidents brought the total number of schoolchildren abducted from the area to 78.

In July, the Borno State Government said it had received a 15-second proof-of-life video of the Lassa students, with Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Abba Wakilbe, saying government was working to secure their release.

In late September, the Borno State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) called for the rescue of the 78 schoolchildren from Mussa and Lassa who had spent more than 100 days in captivity at the time.

Parents of the children also staged protests and issued ultimatums to the Federal Government to rescue the children, which have proved futile.