The trial of Maryam Sanda, who was just granted bail based on the medical reports which showed that she is already pregnant and ill is still going on, and a first prosecution witness whose name is Ibrahim Mohammed, a business mogul and also a friend of Bilyamin Bello, who was murdered by his wife, Maryam Sanda, told High Court in Jabi that Maryam Sanda had earlier threatened to cut her husband’s genital.
According to Ibrahim Mohammed, he was smoking ‘Shisha’ and watching TV with the deceased, when Maryam Sanda came down to call her late husband. While they were upstairs, he heard noise from upstairs before Maryam Sanda sent Sadiya (the fourth defendant) to call him.
“When I got there, I saw both Maryam and Bilyaminu holding each other’s cloth on the neck. I asked what was happening and pleaded that they stop this.
“Maryam told me to tell Bilyaminu to divorce her. I told her they should exercise patience and stop fighting. She said she was not going anywhere until he divorced her,” he said.
The witness said he had to disengage Maryam’s hands from the deceased’s neck, adding that when he did this, Maryam picked a bottle by the side of the door and broke it on the wall.
“She came straight to Bilyaminu to stab him. I held her hands and Bilyaminu went behind her and collected the broken bottle from her hands and went downstairs. I closed the door and continued to advise Maryam that they should stop fighting. She said she would not stop until Bilyaminu divorced her that night; that either he divorced her or she would cut his private part.
“While pleading with her, Bilyamin entered the bedroom and Maryam followed him, insisting that he should divorce her that night but Bilyamin kept silent,” he added.
Ibrahim Muhammed said Maryam took one of the containers of scent and broke the bottle on the table and use it to approach Bilyamin so that she can stab him but her late husband held her hand and collected the container from her hand and they started jabbing each other before Bilyamin Bello pushed her to the bed and went downstairs but Maryam still followed him downstairs.
He said while they were downstairs at the sitting room, Maryam has entered the kitchen and took a knife, which he said he also collected it from her hand, adding that she later held a table knife, which he collected from her hands.
“She attempted picking the knife for about three or four times,” he added.
He said after leaving the house around 1a.m of November 19, 2017 “Abbah Bello (a brother to the deceased) called me about 1 hour later that I should come to Maitama Hospital because Bilyaminu was dead. I went there and met Bilyaminu lying on a bed in front of the hospital. There was a hole in his chest near the heart, bite on his stomach. There was a cut on his thigh and there was a sign of stitching on him,” he said.
He said that the families of both the couple were at the hospital, he further added that they both left there to the police station after the dead body was taken to the morgue. He added that while they were going to the station, Maryam’s mother and brother (Maimuna Aliyu and Aliyu Sanda) with a policeman in their car drove to the couple’s house.
He added that Usman told him that they should follow them to their apartment to see what was going on there, adding that Maimuna and Aliyu went upstairs, while the policeman was in front of the car.
“Usman Aliyu and I entered the sitting room and observed that everything was normal as we left it. When we looked at where Bilyaminu prayed, there was a pair of slippers and praying mat. On a closer look, we discovered that the window blind had come down.”
