Supreme Court upholds death sentence imposed on three Bakassi Boys

The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the death penalty imposed on three members of Bakassi Boys vigilante group in 2006.

The High Court of Abia State had in February 26, 2006 sentenced the three men to death for the murder of two persons which they were said to have apprehended for an alleged crime.


A five-man panel of the apex court led by Justice Dattijo Muhammad unanimously ruled that the three men truly committed murder and deserved the death sentence imposed on them.

Describing the Bakassi Boys as a lawless group, Justice Amina Augie, who delivered the judgment of the apex court, said, “the Bakassi boys are nothing but outlaws”.


He said they were “lawless persons operating outside the law, who desecrate the laws of the land in their unlawful and misguided quest to dispense justice by killing alleged criminals.”

The three men, Emmanuel Eze, Adiele Ndubuisi and Stanley Azuogu, had separately appealed to the Court of Appeal challenging the judgment of the High Court.


But the Court of Appeal in May 2010 dismissed their appeals and affirmed the death penalty imposed on them.

They further appealed to the Supreme Court praying the apex court to substitute the conviction on murder charge with a conviction on manslaughter which would have attracted custodial sentence instead of the death penalty.


They had premised their appeal on the grounds that they were incited to kill the deceased by the Abia State Government.

But delivering the Supreme Court’s separate lead judgments on each of the three appellants’ appeals on Friday, Justice Augie said their line of defence anchored on the grounds of provocation was baseless.

Culled from The Punch.