A Katsina State Senior Magistrates’ Court has sentenced to 10 months in prison, a young mother, Salima Lawal, who was arrested for attempting to sell her 32-day-old twins for N350,000 in December 2017.
The court, however, gave her an option to pay only a N10,000 fine during a court hearing that took place on Wednesday 3rd December 2018.
Explaining the decision to grant the suspect a lenient sentence, the presiding magistrate, Nuradeen El-Laden, said he was motivated to give Lawal a light sentence in view of the health of the twins and that of the mother herself.
He noted that a woman attempting to sell her children might have been battling abject poverty. He also stated that that the mother and her babies had spent a number of days in the prison custody, adding that Lawal had shown remorse for her action.
