Abubakar Abdullahi v. The State (2023)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report – SUPREME COURT

EMMANUEL AKOMAYE AGIM, JSC (Delivering the leading judgment)

This appeal no. SC/CR/276/2020 was commenced on 6-4-2020 against the judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered on 27-3-2020 in appeal No. CA/J/162/C/2018 dismissing the appeal and affirming the judgment of the trial court in BOHC/MG/CR/72/CT10/2017 delivered on 13-11-2017 convicting the appellant of culpable homicide punishable with death and sentencing him to death.

The parties herein have filed, exchanged and adopted their respective briefs as follows – appellant’s brief and respondent’s brief.

The appellant’s brief raised one issue for determination as follows:

“Whether having regards to the evidence led at the trial, the Court of Appeal was right in affirming the decision of the trial court that the charge of culpable homicide punishable with death was proved against the appellant.”

The respondent’s brief adopted and argued the issue raised for determination in the appellant’s brief.

I have carefully read and considered the arguments in all the briefs on this issue.

The established and undisputed facts of this case are that, the appellant and PW1 were friends, that the appellant impregnated PW1 who gave birth to a child named Abdullahi, that the appellant agreed to pay 5000 Naira monthly for the maintenance of his said child by PW1, that after the appellant had defaulted to pay the monthly maintenance of 5000 Naira for two months, PW1 on 13-06-2017 called the appellant by phone to inform him that their son had fallen sick and requested him to come and see her, that when the appellant came to see her, he gave PW1 2000 Naira to take the child to the hospital, that at that point, PW2, the brother of PW1 arrived the scene and expressed his dissatisfaction with the appellant’s lack of care for his child by his sister and a quarrel ensued between them, that PW2 ordered the sister, PW1 to handover the custody of the child to the appellant to take over full custody and care of his child, that PW1 started crying, untied the baby, who started crying from her back, gave him to the appellant, the appellant collected the child and left, that PW1 went back into the house to inform her mother what has just happened, that her mother and a neighbor, PW3 ran out of the house to retrieve the baby from the appellant, they got to the appellant’s family house and did not find him and the baby, that the appellant’s sister they met there said he was not there and did not know he had a son, that while they were waiting for the appellant, about an hour later he came in with his son in his arms opened his door, entered his room and locked the door after refusing PW1’s plea to give her the child, that he remained locked in the room with the child for some hours, that when the appellant finally opened the door of his room, the women rushed into the room and found the child lifeless with the mouth open, that PW3 carried the child and observed that he was lifeless with the mouth open, and the eyes closed, that PW1 fainted on hearing that the child was dead, that PW1 was later revived, that with the consent of all members of the family and the community particularly, PW1’s father and mother and PW1, the next morning, the corpse of the child was buried.

The unchallenged concurring findings of facts are that it is not in dispute that Abdullahi, the appellant’s 10 months old baby by PW1 died and that he died in the custody of his father, the appellant. The concurring finding of facts that the appellant killed his son is what is challenged in this appeal on two grounds as follows-

1. “The Court of Appeal erred in law, when it held (at page 17 of the judgment) that:

“… the state proved its case of culpable homicide punishable with death against appellant and he was rightly convicted by the trial court.”

Particulars of error

1. The conviction of the appellant, and its affirmation by the court below, was not justified by the evidence, and occasioned miscarriage of justice.
2. The reasons given by the Court of Appeal for its affirmation of the appellant’s conviction are speculative.
3. There was no evidence on the face of the record that

(i) the death of the deceased was from an act of the appellant,

(ii) that same intentional and

(iii) had knowledge that death was its probable consequence.