Nigeria - A Lagos State High Court in Ikeja on Monday sentenced a 29-year-old woman, Onyinyechukwu Akunne, to seven years’ imprisonment for killing her husband, Mr. Abuchi Akunne, with a kitchen knife.
It was learnt that the incident occurred during an argument over Premier Lotto, popularly known as Baba Ijebu.
Akunne was sentenced by Justice Josephine Oyefeso following a plea bargain agreement where the initial one count of murder was commuted to a charge of grievous bodily harm which she pleaded guilty to.
“In view of the plea of the defendant, dated, May 5, 2017, to which she pleaded guilty, I hereby find the defendant guilty of the offence with which she is charged.
“I hereby sentence you, Onyinyechukwu Akunne, to seven years in prison. The prison term shall commence from the date of arrest, which was March 28, 2015,” the judge held.
Justice Oyefeso, while giving her judgment, noted that the convict acted out of anger and thus advised her to always keep her anger in check.
“I understand that this act was done out of anger and I hope the convict must have learnt her lesson.
“People ought to learn how to control their temper no matter how angry they are,” the judge said.
Before the sentence was pronounced, Akunne’s counsel, Mrs. P.O. Onu, in her allocution, had urged the judge to temper justice with mercy.
“The defendant is a first-time offender; she is still very young and she has a baby. In fact, she gave birth in prison. Her daughter is a year and seven months old and they have been in prison since 2015,” Onu said.
The judge ordered that the convict’s daughter should be in the custody of any of the parents’ relative immediately after she was weaned.
During Akunne’s arraignment on March 6, 2015, the state prosecutor, Mrs. C.K. Tunji-Carena, had told the court that the convict committed the offence on March 28, 2015, on Idimu Road, Ejigbo, Lagos.
On the day of the murder, the deceased reportedly came home angry for losing to Baba Ijebu, which resulted in a fight between him and his wife.
The convict had stated that Abuchi used to lose huge sums of money to Baba Ijebu which she had warned him to desist from playing.
“He came home angry after losing to Baba Ijebu. I told him to stop wasting money on Baba Ijebu. I asked him why he refused to stop playing the game, he started beating me,” the convict had said.
He allegedly picked the knife his wife was using to slice okra in an attempt to cut her.
At the point of struggling for the knife, she pushed the knife into his chest.
The deceased reportedly sustained a deep cut in his chest, which led to excessive blood loss and his eventual death.
He died before he could be taken to hospital by Onyinyechi and concerned neighbours.
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