Four members of a kidnapping syndicate have been sentenced to death by the Edo State Special Criminal Court in Benin City, in the first judgment delivered by the court since it was set up earlier this year.
Justice Aigbona Terry Momodu passed the sentences on Tuesday, 29 September 2026, after finding the four guilty on an 11 count charge that covered kidnapping, conspiracy, armed robbery, cultism and unlawful possession of firearms. Several outlets, among them Sahara Reporters, Radio Nigeria and THEWILL, reported the ruling and named the convicts as Marvellous Isaac, 32; Wisdom Michael, 36; Rufus Emete Michael, 30; and Gift Raphael, 27.
According to the court records cited in those reports, the case arose from the broad daylight abduction of a woman at the Vegetable Market along Airport Road on 14 June 2026. The judge ordered that the four be executed by hanging or lethal injection.
The sentencing was not uniform across the counts. Reports of the proceedings indicate that Isaac, described as the gang leader, was found guilty on all 11 counts, drawing death on the majority alongside a seven year term, a 10 year term and life imprisonment on separate counts. The other three received death sentences on some counts and were discharged and acquitted on others, with the precise breakdown differing slightly between accounts of the judgment.
Momodu said the law left him no room for discretion once the convictions were entered. He was quoted in several reports as saying his hands were tied under the law, a remark that pointed to the mandatory nature of the penalties attached to the offences.
The court also dealt with the exhibits. A pump action firearm and a number of cartridges tendered during the trial were ordered confiscated, with directions that they be handed to the Edo State Police Armourer at the State Criminal Investigation Department for destruction within 30 days.
The weight of the case lies partly in where it was heard. The Edo State Special Criminal Court was established on 1 July 2026 to handle kidnapping, cultism and other violent crimes, and to move such cases through trial faster than the conventional courts. Tuesday’s ruling was its maiden judgment, which makes it an early test of whether the court can deliver on the speed it was created to provide.
The court was set up under the administration of Governor Monday Okpebholo, who had pledged to prosecute serious violent crime without the delays that often attend such trials. According to reports of the earlier proceedings, the prosecution, led by the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, called several witnesses, while the defendants called none and did not object to the exhibits tendered, including their confessional statements.
Reports of the trial also carried accounts from other alleged victims who came forward. One witness told the court his family paid N5.5 million to secure his release, while another put the ransom for his freedom, after an abduction along Ekehuan Road, at N12.47 million. Those figures form part of the trial record rather than independently confirmed sums.
The judgment has drawn a note of legal caution on what happens next. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and notary public, Olayiwola Afolabi, was quoted advising against any immediate execution, stressing that the convicts retain the right to appeal within 90 days as provided by law. He said the governor could not order the executions carried out while that window remained open, and expressed confidence that the Attorney General would not advise otherwise before the period expired.
That point matters because a death sentence in Nigeria is not the end of the process. Convicts may appeal to the Court of Appeal and, if necessary, the Supreme Court, and even after conviction is confirmed, execution requires the signature of the state governor. In practice, few death sentences in Nigeria are carried out, and many convicts remain on death row for years while appeals run their course or warrants go unsigned.
The abduction itself had already drawn public attention before the trial concluded. Accounts of the incident described gunmen seizing the woman at the market in the presence of shoppers, and a bystander who said she helped the victim’s children spoke publicly about witnessing the attack. The visibility of the crime, in a busy market in daylight, fed wider concern about kidnapping and armed crime in Benin City and the surrounding areas.
For now, the confirmed position is that four persons have been sentenced to death in the court’s first kidnapping verdict, and that the sentences are subject to appeal. Whether they are ultimately upheld, reduced or set aside, and whether any execution follows, will depend on the appeal process and on decisions that lie with the courts above and with the state.