Ogbonna Nwede V. The State (1985)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

O. KAZEEM, J.S.C. 

The appellant was charged under section 319(1) of the Criminal Code Law, Cap 30 of the Laws of Eastern Nigeria 1963 with an offence of murdering one Obodo Nwojiji on or about 30th day of September, 1979. He was tried at the High Court Abakaliki and found guilty of the offence by Adimora J. He was then convicted and sentenced to death.

The facts proved at the trial were as follows:- The appellant, the deceased and four other persons, went to the house of one Akuma Nwangbo (P.W.5) where they drank about six bottles of illicit gin. While drinking, both the appellant and the deceased quarrelled; but the quarrel was settled by those present, and the appellant thereafter left for his home.

Later that night, both the deceased and one Obom Nwede, a relation of the appellant, went to the hut of one Nwagbonyi Igwe (P.W.1) who was aroused from her sleep when the door of her hut was broken down. On getting outside, she saw them and the deceased was then holding a pen-knife. She questioned them as to what had happened; but they said nothing and merely walked away. She then followed them until they got back to the house of P.W.5 where she was told that both the appellant and the deceased had quarreled and that the appellant had left. P.W.1. thereafter returned to her hut to sleep.

The following morning, the village crier was heard raising an alarm and summoning people to the village square where many people in the village gathered, but the appellant was conspicuously absent. The murder of the deceased was then announced, and his corpse was later found lying on the road-side with matchet cuts on his neck, head and forearm. Due to the information received, the appellant was subsequently searched for by his uncle, (P.W4) and when found, he went to his grandfather’s house. Upon being informed of the deceased’s murder, the appellant at first denied being involved in the incident. However, he later confessed to his uncle that he killed the deceased. He was thereafter taken to the police at Ibodo on 1st of October, 1979.

On the 2nd of October, 1979 the appellant first made a statement to the police (Exh.B1) wherein he said that he quarrelled with the deceased who slapped him in the house of P.W.5 when they were drinking; and that the deceased thereafter pursued him to the hut of P. W.1 where the quarrel continued until he had to kill the deceased with a matchet (Exh. C) which he handed over to the police. The appellant was later taken to the road junction where the deceased’s corpse was found; but he said that he did not know how it got there. On the 3rd October, 1979, the appellant made another statement to the police (Exh.E1), wherein he again confessed that he killed the deceased but in different circumstances. Therein, he again described how he, the deceased and others had drunk and how the deceased had pursued him to the hut of P.W.1 where they fought. He said further:

“I then took that matchet I kept there after work and left for my home. I started to run home to report to my father. As I was running, Obodo Nwojiji continued pursuing me, met me with a penknife and wanted to stab me to death. I then killed him there. It was the matchet I collected from the house of Nwabonyi Igwe and was going home with it that I used in killing him after having begged him to leave me but he refused. He said that he must kill me, he must kill me. I was begging him and we were running round and round hence I used my matchet and killed him by giving him two matchet cuts on his neck and befell down inside the gutter along the road there. By the time Obodo Nwojiji wanted to kill me, I was alarming and running but nobody ran to my aid. By the time we started to fight, people had all gone asleep.

…………………………………………… The time i killed him people had slept very well. After killing I hid my matchet in the fallow there where i showed the Police”. (italics mine).

The appellant handed to the Police another blood stained matchet (Exh.F) with which he said he killed the deceased. He also showed the Police Officer (P.W.7) where the deceased’s corpse was, and he demonstrated to him how he sprang from behind to attack and kill the deceased.

At the trial, the appellant did not testify in his own defence; but his counsel submitted that he was provoked by the deceased who attacked him with a pen-knife; hence, he had to kill the deceased in self-defence. The learned trial judge carefully considered the case for the prosecution and the submissions of learned counsel on the issues of provocation and self-defence; and he found that they were not available to the appellant as a defence. In the circumstances, he convicted and sentenced the appellant to death.

On a further appeal to the Court of Appeal in Enugu, appellant’s counsel also submitted to that Court that the deceased provoked the appellant who had to kill him in self-defence. But the Court found that the trial judge was justified in rejecting those submissions. The appeal was therefore dismissed.

The appellant has again appealed to this Court on three grounds and raised inter alia the same issues of provocation and self-defence. In making his submissions Mr. C.O. Akpamgbo S.A.N. learned counsel for the appellant, asked the Court to determine three questions namely:

(a) Whether it could be said that Exhs. B, B1 and E, E1, by themselves without any other circumstances confirming them, were enough in law to prove that the appellant killed the deceased with the requisite intent; and whether the circumstances disclosed in the records weakened the confessional statement

(b) Whether the facts disclosed in those exhibits did not raise the defence of self-defence and provocation such as to reduce the offence from murder to manslaughter and