Associates of the late Bilyaminu Bello have criticised the deceased’s father, Ahmed Bello, for publicly defending President Bola Tinubu’s decision to pardon Maryam Sanda, who was convicted of killing his son.
Hafiz Usman and Bazooka Joe, close associates of the deceased, on Tuesday in separate posts expressed their disapproval over the press conference held by the elderly Bello, where he commended the president for the reprieve granted to his daughter-in-law.
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Backstory
Mr Tinubu had granted state pardon and clemency to 175 convicted persons, including drug offenders serving various sentences.
Ms Sanda, one of those pardoned, was sentenced to death in 2020 for killing her husband, the late Bilyaminu Bello, in their Abuja home in November 2017.
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Ms Sanda, now 37, had spent six years and eight months at the Suleja Medium Security Custodial Centre before her release.
“I have left everything to God,” the deceased’s father said during a press conference on Tuesday, adding that he had forgiven Ms Sanda, convicted of killing his son.
The development follows the family’s initial condemnation of the presidential pardon.
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Knocks
Mr Usman expressed his sadness on Facebook, describing the event as a “stunt.”
He disclosed that Ms Sanda’s father accompanied Mr Bello to the conference raising questions about his involvement.
He noted that if genuine reconciliation was desired, they should have reached out to the deceased’s maternal family, who raised him.
He said how the event turned out is “truly sad” and “hit like a rock shattering glass.”
Mr Usman, who said he had known the deceased all his life, described the father as absent.
“To be honest, I don’t really blame her father (Mr Sanda) because he was only doing what any father would do to protect his daughter from public bashing and whatnot, and I completely understand why,” he wrote.
“What I don’t understand is why dragging into the frame someone who had never been in the picture all through Bilya’s lifetime, and it is that person my ‘anger’ is directed at.
“If they wanted genuine reconciliation, why not reach out to the person they had been dealing with all the while, from when their children were dating till the unfortunate incident occurred? Didn’t they know that Bilya had a biological father when they gave their daughter to him to marry?”
Absent father
Similarly, in a statement credited to Bazooka Joe, a columnist, it corroborated Mr Usman’s claim that the elderly Bello was never present in the deceased’s life. He explained that the late Bello’s parents had met in Sokoto state and married in 1980.
“Bilyaminu was his mother’s first child. She went to her parents’ house to give birth to him in 1981, as is the tradition in Hausaland. She died not long afterwards,” Mr Joe wrote.
“Ahmed Bello went and condoled with the maternal family but never turned up again since then. Bilyaminu was then brought up, first by his grandmother and then by his uncle, former Communications and Defence Minister and former PDP National Chairman Bello Haliru Mohammed.
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“That’s how he prospered in Abuja circles, met and married Maryam from her high-flying family. Before tragedy struck in 2017.”
Both Mr Usman and Joe claimed that the deceased’s father could not have acted alone, adding that it was an attempt to cover up Ms Sanda’s crime.
The columnist asked, “Between this ‘father’ and the maternal family members who are protesting the controversial pardon of their relative’s killer, who really loved Bilyaminu?”
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