Adiele Ndubuisi V. The State (2018)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

AMINA ADAMU AUGIE, J.S.C.

The Appellant is one of the “Bakassi Boys” leaders and members of the Abia State Vigilante Group known as Bakassi., who were convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of two persons, and this Appeal turns on the issue of whether the conviction for murder should be substituted with conviction for manslaughter.

The facts as established at the Abia State High Court is that on 9/7/1999, the Appellant and three other Bakassi Boys, namely, Ezeji Oguikpe, Emmanuel Eze and Stanley Azogu, were invited from Aba, where the said Group is based to Government House, Umuahia by Ndukwe Okereke, a State Security Service Official.

At the Government House, they met the then Secretary to the State Government. Dr. Elekwachi Nwaogbo, who instructed the S.S.S. official, Ndukwe Okereke, to take them, Bakassi Boys to the Safari Restaurant at Umuahia, where they confronted the people they met with dangerous weapons, including cutlasses, knives and guns. In the process, the said two deceased persons were killed and their mutilated bodies dragged to the main road,

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where their remains were set ablaze by the said Bakassi Boys.

The Abia State High Court found the Appellant, who was the second Accused, guilty of the offence of murder, and convicted and sentenced him to death accordingly. The Court of Appeal was also convinced, after reviewing the evidence, that he was guilty of the offence of murder and affirmed the trial Court’s decision.

Further aggrieved, the Appellant has appealed to this Court with a Notice of Appeal containing five Grounds of Appeal and he formulated one Issue for Determination in his Brief of Argument:

Whether the conviction for Murder ought not to be substituted with a verdict of Manslaughter.

The Respondent formulated a similar Issue for Determination in its Brief of Argument which it couched differently as follows –

Whether the Honourable Justices of the Court of Appeal were right in affirming the conviction and verdict of murder of the Appellant instead of substituting same with a verdict of manslaughter.

The Issues formulated by both Parties raise the same question – whether the Appellant was rightly convicted for murder or not

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The Appellant contends that the Court of Appeal “burdened by sentiments over the setting ablaze of the victims after their deaths”, upheld his conviction for murder “despite the fact that the evidence on record did not support a conviction for murder.”