A 36-year-old man has been sentenced to death for kidnapping a three-year-old girl from her school in Mbierebe Obio, Ibesikpo Asutan Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
Monday Joshua Okon, a native of Ekpene Ikpan in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area, was condemned on Thursday for kidnapping the girl for sale in Aba, Abia State.
Akwa Ibom High Court in Uyo presided judge by Justice Okon Okon found Monday guilty of the offence.
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Married with two children, Monday was sentenced alongside one Cecilia Thompson Ebong, who held the child in a tricycle they boarded to AKTC Park, where the victim was to be taken to Aba for a standby child buyer.
The convict confessed to the Police that on the day of the incident, July 20, 2018, he kidnapped the pupil during a graduation party in the school and custodied her in his house in Ibesikpo Asutan for three days, until when his wife advised him to return the girl to where she picked her from, but he ignored her advice.
Luck ran out of Monday Okon, July 24, 2017, when on their way to AKTC Park, a good Samaritan saw the child covered with a cloth inside a tricycle and raised an alarm at Aka Road-IBB Roundabout in Uyo, which led to the arrest of Monday and Cecilia Ebong, who claimed to be the grandmother of the victim.
Okon confessed that he was to deliver the child to an Igbo woman, a 42-year-old Charity Nwachukwu, whom he said he had previously sold a male child to in 2017 and got N50,000 as his percentage.
In its judgment, the Court ruled that Monday Okon should die by hanging, while Cecilia Thompson Ebong, a 44-year-old native of Ikot Offiong Nsit in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area, was sentenced to five years in prison.
Justice Okon said “It is unfortunate and depressing that people still indulge in callous trade of human persons particularly children despite efforts of government to stem the ugly trend.”
The judge said “The recourse to child buying and selling is appalling and indefensible and no punishment will be excessive to deter people from such proclivity tendency.”
Justice Okon held that ‘In Court 1, the sentence of the Court upon you, Monday Joshua Okon, is that you be hanged by the neck, until you are dead and may God have mercy on your soul.”
“In Court 3, Monday Joshua Okon is sentenced to five years imprisonment. The sentences are to run concurrently. In Count 3, the second accused, Cecilia Thompson Ebong was sentenced to five years imprisonment,” the Court ruled.
