Niyi Akinmoju Vs The State (2000)
LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report
UWAIFO, J.S.C.
On 13 January, 2000, I dismissed this appeal as being without merit and said I would give my reasons for doing so on 7 April, 2000. The facts of the case were considered by me really straightforward and there was no serious issue of law involved. I now give my reasons.
The appellant and another were arraigned on a two-count charge of conspiracy and stealing before the High Court. Ijebu-Ode of Ogun State. The goods alleged stolen were some air-conditioners, property of a body known as Omo Wood Complex. On 21 August, 1990 the learned trial judge (Titi Mabogunje, J.) in a considered judgment found them not guilty of conspiracy. She however found 1st appellant guilty of stealing and the 2nd accused guilty of receiving, and accordingly convicted them. Each of them was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour. The appellant and the said 2nd accused appealed to the Court of Appeal. On 31 March, 1993 the 2nd accused’s appeal was allowed as the Director of Public Prosecutions of Ogun State indicated that he did not support the conviction. But the appeal of the appellant was dismissed on 26 June, 1995.
The appellant in his further appeal to this court has raised the following three issues for the determination of the appeal: “(1) was the court below correct when it held that the circumstantial evidence against the appellant was strong and irresistibly. (2) Did the court below fully consider the complaints of the appellant as formulated in the grounds of appeal and canvassed in the appellant’s brief of argument, and if not, has a miscarriage of justice not been occasioned in the circumstances. (3) Is the conclusion of the court below on the alleged confession by the appellant sustainable.” The State did not respond to the appeal which had to be decided only on the brief of argument of the appellant.
The facts of the case can be briefly stated. The appellant was one of five persons who were living at quarters No.9 of the Local Government Staff Quarters at Ogbere in Ogun State. The quarters had been allocated to Omo Wood Complex, a government parastatal at Ogbere. It is a three-bedroom flat with a living room. The Omo Wood Complex made it available to its site Engineer, one Olufolaranmi Olusegun Onayemi who testified as P.W.1. He never really lived there. So the General Manager of the Wood Complex permitted the appellant and another to live there. The said P.W.1 handed the key to the room which he would have occupied to the appellant so as to allow the appellant’s younger brother, Adebola, who came to the appellant in Ogbere to repeat his school certificate examination, to live in the room. Later the appellant brought in two other boys, one of whom was called Ilesanmi.
The evidence is that four air-conditioners were installed in the said quarters while four others were kept on the floor. It was discovered that one or the four air conditioners installed in the room occupied by the two other boys brought in by the appellant was missing. The discovery was made by one of those boys, Ilesanmi, who then reported it to one other occupant of the flat, Mr. Owolabi Adebayo Adekoya (P.W.2), a Forester in the State Forestry Services. Mr. Adekoya reported this fact to P.W. 1. On inspection it was discovered that indeed not only one but five air-conditioners were removed. When P.W. 1 confronted the appellant with this development he was said to have admitted before him and P.W 2, a fact to which both witnesses testified, that he took three out for repairs. He was warned by P.W.1 to return them. He promised to do so but he later returned only one. In his statement to the police he only admitted having taken one for repairs and that he returned it. In the result four air-conditioners were now missing. The appellant’s counsel has argued in respect of issue 1 that the lower court was in error to have upheld the trial judge that the circumstantial evidence against the appellant was strong and irresistibly. The learned trial judge had found that four of the five air-conditioners were kept in the room occupied by the appellant. The lower court, on the basis that there was no evidence that the room was broken into and that the appellant did not show by acceptable evidence that the room was accessible to any other person than himself, held that no one else but the appellant could have removed them. In essence the lower court upheld the reliance by the learned trial judge on the circumstantial evidence to convict the appellant.
It will be recalled that the appellant himself in his statement to the police admitted taking out one air conditioner for repairs. Earlier he had told P.W.1 that it was three he had removed for repairs. It turned out, however, that four air conditioners could not be accounted for. The learned trial judge preferred the evidence of P.W.1 and P.W. 2 that the appellant admitted having removed three air-conditioners to the evidence of the appellant that it was only one. That admission he made to P. W. 1 and P.W 2 is a relevant piece of evidence which can be taken into consideration. The learned trial judge did so and the lower court rightly found that to be proper. It has been held that an admission made at any time by a person charged with an offence (even before it was decided formally charge him with committing a crime and although with no caution having been administered) suggesting that he committed the offence is a relevant fact against him, the maker, and if made voluntarily is admissible in evidence: see Onugwa v. The State (1976) NSCC (Vol. 10) 27 at 29.
I think there was sufficiently strong and irresistibly circumstantial evidence implicating the appellant.It has long been recognised that there may be a combination of circumstances against an accused, no one of which would raise a reasonable conviction but the whole taken together may create a strong conclusion of his guilt with as much certainty as human affairs can admit of: see R v. Exal (1866) 4 F. & F. 922 at 929; (1866) 176 E.R. 850 at 853 per Pollock, C. B. In drawing such an inference and reaching a conclusion of guilt, however, from circumstantial evidence leading to the conviction of an accused, it is necessary to be sure that there are no other co-existing circumstances which would weaken or destroy the inference: see Teper v. R. (1952) A. C. 480 at 489; Udedibia v. The State (1976) 11 S.C. 133 at 138-139. I can find no such co-existing circumstances in the present case. Again, it is enough if the circumstantial evidence is so cogent and compelling as to convince a jury or court that on no rational basis other than the offence as charged can the facts be accounted for: see Abieke v. The State ( 1975) 9-11 SC 97 at 104. I am satisfied that the two lower courts came to the proper conclusion upon the available circumstantial evidence. I would accordingly answer issues 1 and 3 in the affirmative.
As for issue 2 there is nothing that can suggest a miscarriage of justice in the manner the lower court resolved the issues raised before it. The facts that have been adumbrated and relied on by the appellant in his brief as constituting some evidence which would have been favourable to him had the court given them adequate consideration can hardly fulfill that role. Some of those so-called facts came from the evidence of the appellant himself. The learned trial judge considered each such fact in relation to the evidence adduced by the prosecution and in every case rejected the appellant’s version. Some of the other facts are either not material or are completely irrelevant. For instance, what part would the inventory of the property in the that, which the appellant now contends should have been produced, have played if it was made available when the appellant at no time alleged that there were no air-conditioners in the flat In fact he admitted the presence of air-conditioners when he said this much in his evidence in court: “In January 1987 when Adekoya was posted to Ogbere the keys to Wale Salawu’s room was (sic) handed over to Adekoya. Onayemi inspected Adekoya’s room in my presence. There were two uninstalled air-conditions (sic) in Adekoya’s room. One was installed. Two other air-conditions (sic) not installed were kept in Onayemi’s room.” No inventory was needed to establish the fact that air conditioners were in that flat at the material lime since there was evidence of that fact both from the prosecution and the appellant. Obviously the appellant had no worthy defence to the case made against him. It was for these reasons I dismissed his appeal on 13 January, 2000 and affirmed his conviction and sentence.
sc.1/1999