Court Jails Chibok Girls’ Abductor For 15 Years

35-year-old Haruna Yahaya has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by a Federal High Court sitting in Wawa Cantonment, Kainji, Niger State, on Monday.

Yahaya was convicted for being a member of the terrorist organization, Boko Haram, and participating in the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok.

Recall that in April of 2014, over 200 female students were reportedly kidnapped from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State.

Responsibility for the kidnappings was subsequently claimed by Boko Haram insurgents.

The convict was said to have participated in the group’s attacks in Chibok, Chibok Local Government Area of Borno State and Gabsuri town in the Damboa Local Government of the state.

Yahaya, whose left arm and left leg are crippled, had on Monday pleaded guilty to the two counts preferred against him by the Federal Government but pleaded for mercy, saying he was forcefully conscripted into the terrorist group.

But the judge who sat in one of the four special courts established by the Federal High Court to fast track the trial of over 1,000 suspects said the court was “not fooled” by Yahaya’s story.

The court noted the convict was “using the misfortune of his handicap to draw sympathy”.

The judge, therefore, ruled that the 15 years sentence passed on the convict who had been in detention since 2015 would commence counting from Monday.