A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Apo, on Wednesday [today] sentenced Ayedun Makanjuola to four-year imprisonment for running over and killing his wife, Adenike.
The Commissioner of Police charged Makanjuola with culpable homicide.
Justice Angela Otaluka held that the deceased‘s act was provocative when she threw food at her husband and also when she threw a stone at the rear windscreen of his car while he tried to drive out.
Otaluka said she did not consider Makanjuola reversing his car as a retaliation but as a loss of control of his feelings.
“It was not a deliberate action but sudden. The prosecution has failed to prove the intent of the defendant but has proven the offence of culpable homicide. I find the defendant guilty of culpable homicide, not punishable with death, and convict him,” she said.
The defence counsel, Kolade Adeboyega, told the court that the defendant is a responsible man and was planning a trip to bring their two children home with the deceased before the incident.
Adeboyega urged the court to consider the children who are presently with their maternal grandmother.
Otaluka, however, sentenced the defendant to four years’ imprisonment, inclusive of the two years and 10 months he had already spent, citing sections 222 and 224 of the Penal Code.
Section 222 states that culpable homicide is not punishable with death if “the offender, whilst deprived of the power of self control by grave and sudden provocation, causes the death of the person who gave the provocation or causes the death of any other person by mistake or accident.”
Section 224 states that, “Whoever commits culpable homicide not punishable with death, shall be punished with imprisonment for life or for any less term or with fine or with both.”
The prosecution counsel, Adama Musa, told the court that Makanjuola reversed his vehicle and ran over his wife, which led to her death on May 7, 2021 after a misunderstanding they had.
Musa said Makanjuola reversed his car and crashed the deceased into a concrete fence, which caused her serious injuries and rushed his wife to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Makanjuola, in his defence, said he put the car in reverse mode in anger and mistakenly crushed his wife after his brakes failed him. (NAN)
