During investigation, Saturday Sun learnt that she had told the police she committed the crime after she was pressurized by her family members to live with the little boy in her new matrimonial home where she already had had four children.
It was gathered that her husband had objected to accommodating a child she had outside wedlock in his home; hence in fear of his anger she had to kill her child to save the union.
The convict could not keep the secret of her heinous act. She went to tell her father of her deeds after she had repeatedly told one of her sisters that she had taken her son, Ishaya to his father in
Maiduguri.
During the trial, she in futility tried to disown her first confessional statement she willingly gave to the police that she was responsible for the death of her son when she came to take him away on January 23, 2008, from Biu in Biu Local Government to the Azare in Hawul Local Government.
But Justice Pindar Haruna Ngada held the arguments of her lawyers that no medical records had proven before the court that she actually poisoned her child did not hold water because both circumstantial evidence and her confessional statement had roped her in, adding that even the excuse given by the defence counsel that Rebecca was suffering from the pains of lactation at the time she gave her confessional statement couldn’t have saved her from going to the gilotine; because no medical record had suggested that she was under the pains of lactation, neither had any suggested that she has once suffered any form of psychiatric challenges in the past.
The judge recalled in quotes that Rebecca in her confessional statement told the CID department of the police that: “I came to pick my son Ishaya on January 23, 2008 from Biu to take him to Azare but since I had not informed my husband who was against my son staying with us, I was afraid of taking him home so I had to buy N20 rat poison and matches and I took him into the bush and gave him the poison and watched him die after 30 minutes. Then I used his cloth and some dry grasses to burn his face and body so that he could not be traced to me.”
Going by her confessional statement and the fact that her son was seen last in her company, Justice Ngada said, there was enough evidence to convict her, in accordance with the Section 27 Subsection 1 and 2 of The Evidence Act.
All pleas for leniency for Rebecca failed as the court ruled that Section 221 of the Penal Code is incontrovertible even as she commended the humility of the convict throughout the trial despite the fact that she was granted bail.
She however added in her ruling that “by virtue of Section 294 of the Criminal Code Procedure Laws of Borno State, 1994, I shall make recommendation to the governor as soon as the trial is typed and also the judgment to consider granting pardon to the convict or lessen the term of punishment”.
Justice Ngada of High Court No. 10, Maiduguri, said the offence committed by Rebecca was culpable murder which Section 221 of the Penal Code of Nigeria does not allow her the luxury of tempering justice with mercy.
“I wish I could temper justice with mercy; but I can’t; my hands are tied. Consequently the convict is hereby sentenced to death. And she shall die by hanging” the judge held in response to the pleas of Barrister Abba Yusuf, who stood in for Akila Shettima who pleaded for a softer sentence for the condemned murderer.
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