Maryam Sanda, the woman who allegedly stabbed her husband to death in Abuja, will know her fate on Monday when Justice Yusuf Halilu of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court delivers judgment in her protracted trial.

The Nigerian police charged her with culpable homicide in November 2017 and are seeking the death penalty in the two-count charge.

The victim, Bilyaminu Bello, was the son of a former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Haliru Bello.

The killing was premeditated, the police said. Court filings showed Ms Sanda stabbed her husband with a broken bottle at about 3:50 a.m. on the fateful day. The police said she did so with “absolute intent to kill” him.

But the accused pleaded not guilty to the crime. After several attempts, Ms Sanda secured bail with the conditions including an undertaking from her father to produce her in court till the end of the trial.

Charges against Maimuna Aliyu, Ms Sanda’s mother; Aliyu Sanda, her brother, and Sadiya Aminu, her housemaid – for allegedly tampering with evidence by cleaning the blood and other proofs from the crime scene – were later dropped.

The trial has dragged on for almost three years due to delays, multiple adjournments and failure of witnesses to appear in court.

The storm in the marriage between Maryam and late Bilyaminu reached boiling point on the night of November 18, 2017. Multiple court testimonies, including that of the accused, indicated that the tragedy was triggered by a heated argument between the couples that ill-fated night.

Ms Sanda allegedly issued many threats to her husband, including to chop off his male organ if he declined to grant her divorce, Ibrahim Mohammed, one of the six witnesses called by the prosecution said.

He told the court he was with the deceased for over eight hours that night.

Mr Mohammed, a friend of Bilayamin, said their argument had degenerated into a fight.

Mr Mohammed said he tried disengaging Ms Sanda’s hand from her husband’s neck before she rushed to break a bottle of groundnut on the wall and tried stabbing her husband with it.

“I held her hands and Bilyamin went behind her and collected the broken bottle from her.

“She said she would not stop until Bilyamin divorced her that night; that either he divorced her or she would cut his private part,” the witness said.

Mr Mohammed said Ms Sanda made bold her threat as she launched more violent attacks on the deceased before his eyes.

The witness narrated that the first defendant made another attempt to stab her husband after breaking a bottle of perfume, but her husband collected the bottle.

In her testimony before the court, Ms Sanda admitted that the two-year marriage that produced a baby girl was fraught with quarrels.

She, however, denied killing her husband or nursing such intentions. The mother-of-one said trouble started after she discovered nude pictures of another woman in her late husband’s phone and confronted him.

Ms Sanda said she had asked for a divorce before arguments which continued late into the night snowballed into a fight.