By George Mgbeleke <\/p>\n
Applauding the Federal High Court in Abuja which on Wednesday refused the bail request made by five alleged Al-Shabab terrorists who allegedly attacked a Catholic Church in Owo town, Ondo State, leading to the death of over 40 worshippers dead, the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) said anything less than the heaviest penalties for the grave crimes against humanity committed by the terrorists is totally unacceptable. <\/p>\n
HURIWA has also advocated an end to the unofficial moratorium on the implementation of the death penalty by the governors in Nigeria just as the Rights group stated that terrorists believed to have slaughtered scores of Nigeria should actually be handed the maximum penalty of death by firing squad even as governors or the President shouldn’t frustrated the immediate enforcement of the judicial sanction on the terrorists to serve as deterrence. <\/p>\n
HURIWA citing a statistics of casualties from terrorism in Nigeria in just few years as published by statista.com, it emerged that between 2011 and 2023, Boko Haram was responsible for thousands of deaths in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Nigeria is the country most affected by the terrorist group’s attacks. States in the North-East register the highest number of deaths. Borno is by far the most threatened state, in that, Boko Haram has caused over 38,000 deaths in this area. <\/p>\n
Among the news on attacks mostly present in the media, the kidnapping of 276 female students from a secondary school in Borno in 2014 received a global response. As of April 2021, over 100 girls were still missing, while six students were believed to have died, HURIWA asserted. <\/p>\n
HURIWA recalled that Justice Emeka Nwite who dismissed their bail application held that the terrorism charges against them were capital in nature.<\/p>\n
The judge also held that they were accused of being members of a strong terrorist organization who may intimidate witnesses, and influence and jeopardize the trial.<\/p>\n
In all, Justice Emeka Nwite held that the defendants failed to give cogent and verifiable reasons on why they should be allowed home pending their trial and subsequently dismissed the bail request.<\/p>\n
While granting accelerated trial, Justice Emeka Nwite fixed October 19 for commencement of trial.<\/p>\n
It will be recalled that their bail application dated August 11, 2025, was argued by their counsel Abdullahi Awwal Ibrahim on August 19, 2025.<\/p>\n
The five accused persons are Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar.<\/p>\n
While arguing the application, the lawyer had submitted that the accused persons have assembled reliable and responsible sureties to stand for them.<\/p>\n
The request was, however, vehemently opposed by the DSS lawyer, Dr Callistus Eze, on the ground that the accused persons may escape because of the gravity of the charges against them.<\/p>\n
He had urged the court to refuse the bail application and allow the defendants to remain in the DSS custody.<\/p>\n
Some counts in the charge read: \u201cThat you, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar adults, males, with others still at large, sometime in 2021, did join and became members of AL Shabab Terrorist Group, with cell in Kogi State and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 25(1) of Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat you, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar, adults, males, with others still at large, on 30th May, 2022; 37 June, 2022 and 4 June, 2022, at Government Secondary School, Ogamirana, Adavi LGA, Kogi State and behind Omialafa Central Mosque, Ose LGA, Ondo State, respectively, attended and held meetings, where you agreed to and planned for the terrorist attack, which you carried out on 5\u2122 June, 2022, at St. Francs Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 12(a) of Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat you, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar, adults, males, with others still at large, on 05\/06\/2022, at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, with intent to further your religious ideology and while armed with IEDs and AK 47 rifles, did attack worshippers, held them hostage and in the process, caused grievous bodily harm to over 100 persons, including Onileke Ayodele, John Blessing, Nselu Esther and Ogungbade Peter and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 24 Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 and punishable under Section 24(2)(a) of the same Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat you, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar, adults, males, with others still at large, on 05\/06\/2022, had in your possession IEDs and AK 47 rifles, with which you attacked worshippers at St. Francis Catholic Church, held them hostage, killed over 40 persons and caused grievous bodily harm to over 100 persons and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 2(1)(2) and (3)(v) and punishable under Section 24(1) and (2) of TPPA, 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat you, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar, adults, males, with others still at large, on 05\/06\/2022, at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, with intent to cause death, did detonate Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which led to the death of over 40 persons, including: Ajanaku John; Onuoha Deborah; Onileke Esther and John Bosede and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 42 (a)(ii) of Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat you, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar, adults, males, with others still at large, on 05\/06\/2022, at St. Francis Catholic Church , Owo, Ondo State, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, did detonate Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which caused grievous bodily harm to over 100 persons, including: Onuchukwu Happiness, Ogungbade Vivan and Nnakwe Paschaline Ugochinyerem and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 42(a)(i) of Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke Applauding the Federal High Court in Abuja which on Wednesday refused the bail request made by five alleged Al-Shabab terrorists who allegedly attacked a Catholic Church in Owo town, Ondo State, leading to the death of over 40 worshippers dead, the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) said anything less than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1904,4491,2218,1230,2217,1556],"class_list":["post-7064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime","tag-committed","tag-detonate","tag-explosive","tag-humanity","tag-improvised","tag-unacceptable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7065,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7064\/revisions\/7065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}