COURT SENTENCES 4 "SHILA" BOYS TO 5 YRS IN PRISON EACH

Four (4) members of the dreaded "Shila" group terrorising the inhabitants of Jimeta and Yola towns in Adamawa State will spend 5 years each in prison for criminal conspiracy and extortion.

The convicts are; Usman Ahmed, Abdullahi Salihu, Hamza Abdullahi and Aliyu Ishaku,all residents of NEPA in Yola North Local Government Area, Adamawa state.

Magistrate Nafisatu Bala, of Chief Magistrate Court 5, convicted and sentenced the suspects to 5 years in prison after they were tried and found guilty as charged.

The judge, however, gave the convicts an option of N60,000, fine each and also ordered that compensation of N1million be paid to Ibrahim Aliyu, owner of tricycle used by the convicts to perpetuate the crime.

On arraignment on the 10th October, 2021, by the prosecutor, Seargent Ahmed Abubakar, the convicts confessed to have snatched 5 handsets from their victims.

One of them, Aliyu Ishaku who operated a leased tricycle belonging to Ibrahim Aliyu, was said to have in turn hired the tricycle to the 3 other convicts to carry out "Shila" operations within the Jimeta and Yola metropolis. 

After every operation, the convicts used to pay the sum of N8000 as daily returns for the hired tricycle to Ishaku even when he knew that they were using it to attack and dispossess people of their valuables.

During one of their operations around Dougirei area  in Jimeta, the convicts were said to have violently attacked people and dispossed them of 5 handsets, but luck ran out of them as they were intercepted by a mob.

NEWS PLATFORM learnt that it took the intervention of the operatives of the police command to rescue them from being burnt alive.  

It was further learnt that while the mob were trying to burn the convicts alive, somebody stole the tricycle being used by the "Shila" group at the scene of the incident.

The operatives were said to have rescued them and took them to the state Criminal Investigation Department of the state police command for investigation.

But when Ishaku was informed about the incident involving his partners in crime, and that the tricycle had been stolen, he quickly approached the original owner of the tricycle, Ibrahim Aliyu, and lied to him that the police have impounded his tricycle and it is at the CID.

It was at this juncture that the accomplis of the "shila" group, Ishaku and the real owner of the tricycle drove to the CID to make case for the impounded tricycle to be released when he met his waterloo.

However, when the convicts saw them at the CID, they alerted the police that Ishaku is their partner in crime, and that he used to lease his tricycle to them to carryout operations in return for #8000 daily, as such he should be arrested.

He was there and then arrested and taken to court along side the 3 suspects for prosecution during which they were all found guilty as charged.

Earlier, after the plea of the convicts, the prosecutor, Seargent Ahmed Abubakar, called a witness who corroborated their plea and subsequently applied for summary trial of the defendants and now convicts.