Court Sentences Man Who Set Mum Ablaze

Stephen Jiya, who set his mother on fire in December 2021, resulting in her death, has been sentenced to death by hanging.

Jiya killed his 61-year-old mother, Mrs. Comfort Jiya, a retired director in Niger State Ministry of Education, after accusing her of being behind his wife’s disappearance from home in Suleja, following a misunderstanding.

The Chief Judge of Niger State, Justice Halima Ibrahim Abdulmalik, who delivered the judgment of culpable homicide against Jiya, said he was found guilty of culpable homicide punishable under Section 221 of the Penal Code Law, which attracts the death penalty.

Jiya was arraigned before the chief judge on September 14, 2022, while hearing into the case began on November 23, 2022.

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Delivering the judgment, Abdulmalik noted that all the evidence and prosecuting witnesses, who testified before the court, were able to prove that the convict was responsible for the death of his mother.

She added that the circumstances of the sentence of the court upon Jiya was that he should be hanged by the neck, electrocuted, executed, or injected with lethal injection until he is dead, while she declared that he would be hanged by the neck.

Jiya was arrested on December 20, 2021 by police operatives attached to the G.R.A Division for killing his mother.

During interrogation, he confessed that he and his wife had a misunderstanding, but when he returned home from work the next day, she had left his home in Suleja to Minna.

He confessed that he went to his family house because he suspected his mother was behind his wife’s leaving the house and he got a plastic bottle of fuel which he poured on his mother, who was cooking in the kitchen when he arrived and she was roasted.

Neighbours came to her rescue and took her to the Minna General Hospital where she was referred due to how severe the burns were and she died later in the day.