‘I killed my mum in self defence’

Weekly Trust gathered that the deceased, simply called Yaya, had been scolding her wayward child, Usman, recently for alleged theft but the boy purportedly ignored his mother’s reprimands and continued.    When our correspondent sought to hear from the minor how he allegedly committed matricide, the boy gave different versions.    Narrating how the incident […]

Weekly Trust gathered that the deceased, simply called Yaya, had been scolding her wayward child, Usman, recently for alleged theft but the boy purportedly ignored his mother’s reprimands and continued.   

When our correspondent sought to hear from the minor how he allegedly committed matricide, the boy gave different versions.   

Narrating how the incident happened, young Usman said his mother took a knife and threatened to kill him for failing to attend an afternoon class at a Qur’anic school. Usman, a class three student of ’Yan Mata Primary School, did not take his mother’s threats lightly. According to him, he wrested the knife from her hand and in the process it pierced her stomach.   

Although the boy gave many disjointed accounts of the incident, he told Weekly Trust that the only place he was sure he stabbed his mother was on her left cheek, close to her eye. “To be candid, I stabbed her on her cheek, close to her eye. But I did not stab her in the stomach,” said the boy.   

Usman said he was only trying to dispossess her of the knife when it slipped from her and pierced her stomach. Usman then said he took the knife and stabbed her in the cheek. “As she slumped dying, I started hollering and crying out for help,” he said.   

Usman said he soon alerted his sister, his uncle and then his father. According to him, they went alongside with his uncle to the police.   

About how his younger sister, Nafisa, also sustained knife wounds, he said he was trying to throw the knife onto the roof when the knife hit his sister and injured her. “Even my elder sister knows that I couldn’t commit the offence. It was my elder brother, who often smokes Indian hemp, that could do it,” he said.   

Usman said he was an average student in school, saying that he once even took first position. “But in the previous ones, to be candid, I failed as I took the 33rd position,” he said.   

Asked why he did not attend the afternoon session of the Qur’anic school, he said the reason he did not attend the class was because he visited his eldest sister’s house.   

Usman, who claimed that he was not tortured by the police, pleaded with the police to leave him in their headquarters so that he will be rehabilitated there. “I want to remain here so that I will be corrected. I want to forsake all forms of delinquency,” said the boy.   

Having a hand in the killing of your mother, have you sought forgiveness from God? Usman said he will pray to Almighty Allah to forgive him for what he has committed. “I want Allah to forgive what I did,” he said.   

The suspect then revealed that if set free, he would want his father to enrol him in a Qur’anic school in another town far from his family.   

Witnesses said Usman came home with spectacles, which he allegedly stole from his neighbours. Seeing her child with an item that did not belong to him, Yaya queried him and threatened him with a knife – should he continue with such acts. He grabbed the knife from her and began to stab her.   

According to Usman’s younger sister, Nafisa, who witnessed how their mother was slain, Usman first stabbed late Yaya in the hand, then stomach and later on her eye.   

A witness, Saifullahi Abdulhamid, said he was the first to witness late Yaya lying in a pool of her own blood. He said she was rushed to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival.   

Police Public Relations Officer of the Kano State Police Command, SP Baba Mohammed Azare, said the young man first informed the police that his brother had killed their mother.

Azare said the police have arrested both brothers, adding that investigations into the matter are still on.