Oladapo V. State (2020)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

UWANI MUSA ABBA AJI, J.S.C.

This appeal is against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Akure, dated 15 January 2014, affirming the trial Court’s judgment against the appellant. The appellant was tried and convicted by the trial Court for murder and sentenced to death by hanging.

​The appellant was charged with the murder of a 21-year-old lady, Sikiratu Abaki, who died on 7 April 1998, at Ilobu village in Osogbo, Osun State. It is the record that on 6 April 1998, the mother of the deceased informed PW1 that she could not find the deceased. The following day, Fausatu and Ganiyu informed PW1 that they found the pant and brassier of the deceased. PW2 testified that the deceased was last seen with the appellant. After investigation, the decapitated body of the deceased was exhumed at the entrance of the house of the appellant while the head was found in his ceiling. At the trial, the respondent paraded 6 witnesses and tendered 43 exhibits, which swayed the trial Court to convict the appellant. His conviction was affirmed on appeal by the lower Court, hence this appeal.

​

In arguing the appeal, the appellant formulated an issue for the determination of the appeal:

“Whether the concurrent findings of fact or summation of evidence as made by the Court of Appeal were perverse and thereby occasioned a miscarriage of justice?”

It is submitted by the learned counsel to the appellant that this Court should form an independent opinion on the confessional statement of the appellant and the post mortem report and that the evidence of PW1-4 did not prove the ingredients of murder against the appellant. That since PW6 did not testify that he was tendering exhibits K1, K2, E and E1, it was wrong for both the trial and lower Courts to extract confessional statements from them. He sought support in Kasa v. State (1994) 5 NWLR (Pt. 344) at 286.

On exhibit D, the post mortem report, he submitted that since the pathologist was not present to be cross-examined, the report is tainted and spurious. He stressed that Section 55 (3) of the Evidence Act, mandates the pathologist to be summoned to testify. He relied on Amayo v. State (2002) FWLR (Pt. 91) at 1592; Ahmed v. State (2001) FWLR (Pt. 34) at 455.

​

The respondent’s learned counsel’s submission on the other hand is that by the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, the prosecution by the witnesses and exhibits presented proved by both voluntary confession and circumstantial evidence that the appellant murdered the deceased. In proving murder against the appellant, it is submitted that the evidence of PW4, PW5 and PW6, the confession of the appellant and the post mortem report, nailed the appellant. He referred to exhibit D as only confirming the confession of the appellant that he killed the deceased for money making ritual. Furthermore, he settled that there is no law that compels the medical doctor to testify in all murder cases where medical report is required. He citedJohn Mamudu Buba v. State (1992) 1 NWLR (Pt. 215) 1; Blessing v. F.R.N. (2015) All FWLR (Pt. 805) 1, (2015) 13 NWLR (Pt. 1475) at 38 and Section 55 (1)(2) & (3), Evidence Act.

On the circumstantial evidence, he stated that exhibits D and E are helpful to establish the murder. He cited in support Nwachukwu v. State (2007) 12 SCM (Pt. 2) at 469. That the confessions of the appellant contained in exhibits E1, E2, K1 and K2 are enough to ground the conviction of the appellant. He relied on Smart v. State (2016) 9 NWLR (Pt. 1518) at 481.

The appellant was charged with the murder of the deceased where circumstantial and confessional evidence was used to convict and sentence him to death. There is no doubt that the prosecution in a murder charge, owes it a duty to discharge by proving the death of the victim as the responsibility of an accused by act or omission, intentional act or omission of the accused with knowledge that it could cause grievous bodily harm or death.

In other words, it is trite law that in a charge of murder, the burden is on the prosecution to prove that the deceased died, that the death was caused by the accused, that the accused intended to either kill the victim or grievously harm him. See Per Ariwoola JSC in Oketaolegun v. State (2015) LPELR-24836 (SC).

​