Essien Udim – A High Court sitting in Essien Udim, Akwa Ibom State, has sentenced a 36-year-old woman, Uwakmfon Isaac Jonah, to life imprisonment for attempting to murder a 12-year-old girl after luring her from a local market into a nearby bush.

Delivering judgment on Thursday, Justice Winifred Effiong convicted the hairdresser and divorcee from Ikot Obong, Afaha Clan, Essien Udim Local Government Area, on a one-count charge of attempted murder, contrary to Section 276 of the Criminal Code, Cap. 38, Vol. 2, Laws of Akwa Ibom State, 2022.

The court held that the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the convict deliberately attempted to kill the child on July 20, 2023, after deceitfully leading her away from Urua Akpan Market.

Evidence before the court showed that the victim, whose identity is withheld because she is a minor, had accompanied her mother, a pepper trader, to the market where she was hawking fresh pepper when the defendant approached her under the guise of buying the produce.

The woman reportedly told the child that an elderly customer nearby wished to purchase the pepper but could not walk to the market. She further claimed that the customer was close to her mother’s waterleaf farm and persuaded the unsuspecting girl to accompany her into a nearby bush.

Narrating her ordeal in a statement tendered before the court, the victim said she initially trusted the woman because she appeared respectable and was neatly dressed.

She recalled that when she became suspicious and attempted to turn back, the defendant chased her, overpowered her, gagged her with a piece of cloth, attempted to gouge out one of her eyes and inflicted a deep machete cut on her neck before fleeing the scene, leaving her for dead.

“I followed the lady because she put on a nice dress. When I said the road was too far and wanted to return, she held me.

“I ran into the bush, but she caught me, tied my mouth with my cloth so I could not shout for help, brought out a knife from her bag and cut my left eyebrow and the right side of my neck before running away,” the victim told the court.

The defendant was arraigned on August 12, 2024, and pleaded not guilty after the charge was interpreted to her in Annang language.

During the trial, the prosecution called three witnesses and tendered both the victim’s and the defendant’s statements as exhibits.

Although the defendant admitted taking the child from the market into the bush, she denied attacking her, claiming she handed the girl over to an unidentified woman allegedly harvesting waterleaf nearby.

Justice Effiong rejected the defence as unbelievable, noting that the defendant failed to provide the identity, address or any description of the alleged woman.

The court found that the victim’s testimony was consistent and corroborated by compelling circumstantial evidence, including the nature of the injuries sustained, the defendant’s own admission that she took the child into the bush, and the victim’s immediate identification of her while receiving treatment at St. Mary’s Hospital, Urua Akpan.

In the judgment, Justice Effiong ruled that the circumstances clearly established the defendant’s intention to kill.

“The defendant lured a vulnerable child away from the safety of a public market into a secluded bush. The child sustained a deep cut to the neck and injuries to the eye.

“The neck is one of the most vital and vulnerable parts of the human body. Anyone who deliberately inflicts a deep cut on the neck of a helpless child must be presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of such an act.

The fact that the child survived does not diminish that intention,” the judge held.

The court further declared that the prosecution had established every ingredient of the offence beyond reasonable doubt, describing the defendant’s attempt to blame an unnamed third party as an afterthought incapable of creating any reasonable doubt.

Following the conviction, defence counsel pleaded for mercy and urged the court to grant the convict a second chance.

However, Justice Effiong ruled that Section 276 of the Criminal Code prescribes life imprisonment as the mandatory punishment for attempted murder, leaving the court with no discretion to impose a lesser sentence.

“This court lacks the jurisdiction to reduce the sentence prescribed by law. Consequently, the defendant, Uwakmfon Isaac Jonah, is hereby sentenced to confinement for life,” the judge declared.