A federal high court sitting in Jalingo, Taraba State capital, has sentenced two individuals to one year and six months in prison for dealing in cannabis and psychoactive substances.

The defendants entered guilty pleas to the two and four count charges brought against them by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), and Judge Ibrahim then sentenced them to the respective jail terms.

On June 10, the 22-year-old Ammar Abdullahi and 44-year-old Baba Usman appeared in court and entered guilty pleas to the allegations against them.

Justice Ibrahim stated in his ruling that it is a well-established legal principle that the court must convict and sentence a defendant who enters a guilty plea to a non-capital offense if it is satisfied that the defendant understood the charge and intended to admit all of the offense’s elements by entering a guilty plea.

He went on to say that the court is confident that the defendants committed the offenses charged against them after hearing their confessions and admissions, the prosecution’s evidence, and the exhibits that were submitted.

He ruled that after hearing Allocutus’s plea from the defendants’ attorney, A.M. Vakude, Baba Usman was given a six-month prison sentence for the two counts, with no chance of fine. The sentences are to run consecutively from the date of incarceration in the NDLEA facility.

Similarly, Judge Ibrahim sentenced Ammar Abdullahi to a year in jail for the four counts, which are to run concurrently and have no opportunity to fine from the date of confinement at the NDLEA facility.