Sele Eyorokoromo & Anor V. The State (1983)

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ESO, J.S.C. 

This appeal came before this Court on 24th February, 1983. After taking the submissions of the learned counsel for the appellants, we did not consider it necessary to call on the learned counsel for the State, Mr. Edokpayi, the Deputy Solicitor-General of Bendel State.

We dismissed the appeal and adjourned till today to give our reasons for our decision. I now give my reasons for agreeing that the appeal be dismissed.

The case was first tried in the Warri High Court. In an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal, that Court ordered a retrial and that retrial was confirmed by this Court on 12th April, 1979. The present appeal therefore, is an appeal following that retrial.

It was a tragic incident. One Obiogbo had a fight with one Solmon Ebikeme as a result of which the latter died. Jibunor Anigho, the deceased in this case, was master of Obiogbo and he, Anigho, went to the police station to report the matter.

An investigation party, including the only two witnesses for the prosecution in this case, set out for the scene of incident. In so far as the evidence goes against the two appellants, there are two distinct scenes to the Act in this unsavoury drama.

Evidence of Scene 1 which gave the picture of the first attack on the deceased was given by the first prosecution witness, Josiah Mokena an inspector of police.

This witness, after Anigho had ‘made a report to him of the fight between his boy John and Ebikeme, took two other police constables with him and led a party of about fifty people to Bolou-Ndoro where the corpse of Ebikeme was expected to be. On their arrival, the villagers had gathered at the waterside and the first appellant who was with the villagers said

”This is Jibunor. The deceased John is his own boy and now that Jibunor himself is here, he Jibunor should be killed.”

The villagers attacked the police party at this exhortation by the first appellant despite pleas from the witness not to harm Jibunor or any other member of the party. In this attack, the second appellant attempted to strike both Jibunor and the witness with an axe, Jibunor had by this time been so beaten that he became unconscious. At a subsequent attack, the witness himself became unconscious and could not give evidence of the second scene.

The second scene was at the river bank after the villagers had beaten up Jibunor.

When at the river bank 1st appellant noticed Jibunor was still alive he ordered the mob to kill him. The canoe was then dragged mid stream and there the 2nd appellant and others killed Jibunor.

The learned trial judge carefully sifted the evidence, gave detailed consideration to the defence of the appellants, the issue of accomplices vel non, the absence of the corpus delicti, whether or not there was common purpose, provocation and self defence even when most of these defences were not raised either by the appellants or their learned counsel. The learned trial judge found the appellants guilty of murder, and sentenced them to death.

The appellants appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal, which I would hereinafter, in this judgment, refer to as the Court of Appeal, and in a judgment delivered by Omo Eboh J.C.A. to which Ete and Okagbue JJ.C.A. concurred, the Court of Appeal after a most careful examination of the points raised in the appeal dismissed the appeal of the appellants and confirmed the decision of the trial court.