Mgbeleke Ovuoba V. The State (2016)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

RITA NOSAKHARE PEMU, J.C.A. 

This appeal is against the Judgment of the High Court of Ebonyi State of Nigeria, Abakaliki Judicial Division holden at Abakaliki; in which the Appellant and others were convicted for arson and sentenced to a term of seven years in prison.

FACTS LEADING TO THE APPEAL
The Appellant and five others were arraigned before the lower Court for the offence of Arson, in that they were alleged to have wilfully and unlawfully set fire on the dwelling house of one Michael Onyibe on the 23rd day of May 2011. – Page 2 of the Record of appeal.

In proof of the charge, the Prosecution called four witnesses and tendered five (5) Exhibits, A, B, C, D, E respectively and Id I-E.

The Appellant called fourteen (14) witnesses and tendered four (4) Exhibits B, B1, J, and H respectively.

It is the case of the Prosecution that on the 23rd of May 2011, the Appellant and five others conspired to set fire on the dwelling house of Michael Onyibe and did fire on the said house.

?The Appellant in his defence, raised the defence of alibi; in that on the date when the

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crime was allegedly committed, he was not in Mgbo Abaja village, and could not have set fire to the house of Michael Onyibe.

The lower Court rejected the defence of alibi and convicted the Appellant and the other accused persons for arson, and sentenced them each to a term of seven years imprisonment.

The Appellant is dissatisfied with the judgment of the lower Court and is desirous of appealing same. Consequently pursuant to the Practice Direction of this Honourable Court, the Appellant filed a Notice of Appeal on the 19th of September 2013 with two (2) Grounds of Appeal. – Pages 154-157 of the Record of Appeal.

The Grounds of Appeal are hereby adumbrated –
GROUND ONE: “The learned trial Judge erred in law when he dismissed the case alibi and part forward by the accused person in his defence in the charge of Arson and against the accused person”.
GROUND TWO “The learned trial Judge erred in law when he held without proof that the accused was the person that set fire on the properties, notwithstanding the age long case of village authorizing that both parties accepted it exists which metamorphosed to this malicious

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allegation.”