By Lucy Adautin
A Chinese man has been sentenced to death by hanging for killing his Nigerian girlfriend, Ummukulsum Buhari, in Kano State.
Frank Geng-Quangrong was convicted by a local court in northern Nigeria’s economic hub of Kano state, Kano Justice Commissioner Haruna Dederi said.
Geng-Quangrong had pleaded not guilty.
“This is a signal that whoever is coming to a society should be prepared to comply with the extant laws of that society,” Dederi said.
Dederi, who is also the prosecution counsel, had told the court that the convict committed the offence on 16 September 2022, at Janbulo Quarters Kano.
He said on that date at about 9 p.m., the convict stabbed the deceased with a knife in her house situated at Janbulo Quarters Kano for undisclosed reasons.
“The victim was rushed to the Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital Kano where she was confirmed dead by a medical doctor”.
Death sentences for capital offenses are common in Nigeria and sometimes involve foreigners. A Danish man in 2022 was sentenced to die by hanging for killing his wife and daughter.
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However, executions rarely occur as they require approvals by state governors. Only two warrants for death sentences have been signed since 1999, according to Inibehe Effiong, a Nigerian human rights lawyer.
Geng-Quangrong was accused of stabbing his girlfriend, 22-year-old Ummukulsum Sani, in September 2022 at a Kano residence. Local media quoted him as saying he stabbed her in self-defense.
He has up to three months to appeal his sentence at Nigeria’s Court of Appeal.
