Man sentenced to death for killing his father in Lokoja

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 -A High Court 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 the city.

Justice M.M. Gwatana delivered the judgement on Monday.

He found Abbah guilty of culpable homicide, which carries the death penalty under Section 221 of the Kogi State Penal Code, 2019.

The judge said the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the man deliberately gave his father fatal injuries.

The attack happened on October 5, 2024.

Abbah was arrested and charged with culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy in case No. HCL/01C/2025.

Prosecution counsel M. Abaji told the court that the man stabbed his father in the chest and back.

The father was confirmed dead at a hospital on October 9, 2024.

The prosecution called nine witnesses, including the dead man's wife, Hajia Jumai Dahiru, and two of the defendant's siblings, Nafisat Dahiru and Auwwal Dahiru.

It also presented nine exhibits, among them a blood-stained shirt, the father's blood sample, a knife, a digital forensic report and a CD analysis.

The defendant called no witness except an Islamic cleric who spoke on inheritance.

The court brushed this aside as irrelevant, saying it was a case of culpable homicide and not an inheritance matter.

Three people the defendant named as able to support his alibi for the night of the attack, a tea seller called Mai Shai, Aunty Ladidi and Danladi, never came to testify.

Justice Gwatana said none of the nine witnesses saw the stabbing, but the case was proved through circumstantial evidence.

He said the blood-stained clothes, along with the evidence of the wife and the two siblings, made up more than 80 per cent of what was needed to prove the case.

The court threw out the conspiracy charge for lack of evidence.

The defence lawyers, Mohammed S. Inuwa and Mohammed S. Maihaja, said their client will appeal.

They argued that the judge relied on inadmissible evidence to reach his decision.

The head of the dead man's family, Yusuf Bala, welcomed the judgement and said justice had been done.

He said the family has nothing against the defendant but wanted justice to serve as a warning to others.