A magistrates’ court in Kaduna, on Wednesday, ordered that a trader, Jibrin Yusuf, 34, should be given 10 strokes of cane for beating his friend over a N3,000 debt.
The magistrate, Ibrahim Emmanuel, imposed the penalty after Yusuf pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy and assault.
Emmanuel held that the court would be lenient with the convict because he did not waste the court’s time with his admission of guilt.
The magistrate admonished the convict to desist from such acts, as the court would not take it lightly with him next time.
Emmanuel also ordered Yusuf to pay the complainant, Abubakar Haruna, N230,000 as restitution.
Earlier, the prosecutor, Insp. Chidi Leo, had told the court that on Feb. 16, Haruna, who lives in the same compound with the convict, reported the matter at the Gabasawa Police Station.
Leo said the complainant, who had sometime in the past borrowed the money from his neighbor, was quietly in his room.
On the fateful day, the convict came and demanded for his money, but Haruna could not produce it, and this led to an altercation between the two, the prosecutor said
Leo said that the convict later mobilized four boys, now at large, trespassed into the complainant’s room, beat him up, destroyed his property worth N50,000, and stole his brother’s phone valued at N180,000.
The prosecutor said that the offenses contravened the Penal Code of Kaduna State, 2017. (NAN)
