Justice Peter Odo Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja has sentenced a Boko Haram victim, Ali Kolo, to nine years imprisonment, while simultaneously ordering his immediate release after finding that he had already spent more than a decade in detention.
Kolo, who suffered a gunshot wound to his right leg during an attack by Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State, was convicted for failing to report information about the group’s activities to security agencies.
The Federal Government had initially charged him on four counts, but he pleaded guilty to one count relating to concealment of information about the terrorist group’s operations.
During proceedings, the prosecution led by Mr. David Kaswe, a Deputy Director in the Federal Ministry of Justice argued that Kolo failed in 2017 to provide relevant information to the military or any security agency, as required under the Terrorism Prevention and Prohibition Act, 2013.
To support the case, the prosecution presented Kolo’s extra-judicial statement, in which he admitted not relaying the information, as well as an investigation report that indicted him. Both documents were admitted as evidence without objection from the defence counsel, Mrs. A.O Usman.
Based on this, the prosecution urged the court to impose a 10-year jail term, citing his admission of guilt and the weight of evidence presented.
However, the defence offered a different account of events. Kolo told the court that he had actually set out to report the terrorists to the military but was attacked along the way. According to him, he was shot with an AK-47 rifle, an injury that left him hospitalized and prevented him from completing his mission.
His counsel pleaded for leniency, arguing that the failure to report the information was not intentional but rather the result of circumstances beyond his control.
In his judgment, Justice Lifu agreed that Kolo did not report the information but accepted that the failure was not deliberate. He ruled that the situation was influenced by factors outside the defendant’s control.
The judge then sentenced him to nine years imprisonment but ordered that the sentence should take effect from 2017, when Kolo was first arrested and detained.
Citing prison laws, Justice Lifu noted that Kolo had already spent more than 10 years in custody—exceeding the imposed sentence. As a result, he ordered his immediate release to allow him seek proper medical attention for injuries sustained during the Boko Haram attack.
Although the prosecution expressed reservations about the ruling, the judge maintained that the conviction was limited strictly to failure to report information and did not involve membership of, or training with, the terrorist group.
He further held that continued detention would amount to double jeopardy, stressing that the defendant had already endured sufficient punishment.
In a separate but related ruling, the court sentenced another defendant, Ibrahim Buba, a bricklayer from Borno State, to 10 years imprisonment for a similar offence.
Buba, also known as Baba Gana, admitted during his trial that he knew two members of the terrorist group but failed to report them to authorities. Instead, he fled from Borno to Mubi in Adamawa State and later relocated to Onitsha in Anambra State, claiming he feared for his life after being identified by the insurgents.
He was eventually arrested in 2023 while working as a bricklayer in Onitsha. Although he pleaded for leniency, the court sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment—less than the 20-year term requested by the prosecution.
Justice Lifu ordered that Buba’s sentence should take effect from March 24, 2023, the date of his arrest and detention.
