Saka Oladejo V. The State (1987)

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NNAMANI, J.S.C.

On 9th April, 1987. I dismissed this appeal and indicated that I would give my reasons for my judgment today. I now give the reasons.

In Charge No. K/22C/81 in the Kano Judicial Division of the Kano State High Court, the following two-count charge was brought against the appellant. They were –

“(1) That you Saka Oladejo on or about the 18th day of December, 1980 at Kurma. Asabe Village in Kano, within the Kano Judicial Division committed the theft of a Volkswagen Car, Registration No. KN 323 KG by taking it out of the possession of Wada Shuaibu Bichi and you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 287(1)(c) of the Penal Code (As amended by the Penal Code (Amendment No.2) Law 1980).

(2) That you Saka Oladejo on or about the 18th of December, 1980 at Kurma Asabe Village in Kano, within the Kano Judicial Division, committed Culpable Homicide punishable with death in that you caused the death of Wada Shoaibu Bichi by cutting off his head with a knife with the knowledge that his death would be the probable consequence of your act and you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 221(b) of the Penal Code.”

The facts of the case were that Wada Shuaibu, the deceased was a student at the Kaduna Polytechnic. He came to Bichi in Kano State sometime about 17th December, 1980 on holidays. On the following day, that is 18th December, 1980, Wada left Bichi for Kano for a business and also to see some of his friends. He told his people that he would return to Bichi in the evening of that day i.e. 18th December, 1980. He drove to Kano in his Volkswagen Car Registration No. KN 323 KG. When he arrived Kano he visited different places to transact business. He also visited the place of work of the appellant herein and he was in fact found driving his car in the company of the appellant on 18th December, 1980. Nothing was heard of him again until a few days after the 18th December, 1980 when his headless corpse was removed from a well in the house of the appellant.

On 19th December, 1980, as per the evidence of the prosecution at the trial, the appellant tried to sell the deceased’s Volkswagen Car to two Plain Clothes Policemen. In the course of investigation too, items of clothing such as a pair of brown sandals, a pair of brown shoes, a big gown and a jumper of lace material, all suspected to be personal effects of the deceased and one Mahmoud Ibrahim Bichi were found in the house of the appellant. Mahmoud Bichi’s clothes found in appellant’s house were among those that Mahmoud had given to the deceased on 16th December, 1980 when he, deceased, left Kaduna for Kano.

The appellant on being arrested made a statement on 28/12/80, received in these proceedings as Exhibit B, to the Police. The appellant was arraigned before Rowland, J. who after a trial in which the prosecution called eleven witnesses and the appellant testified in his defence but called no witness, found him guilty on both charges and sentenced him to the mandatory 15 years imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane in respect of the 1st charge, and to death by hanging in respect of the second charge. After reviewing the evidence, and considering the law applicable to the facts found, the learned trial Judge had concluded as follows:-

“I do not believe the accused when he said in Exhibit D that he bought a Volkswagen Car from two unknown persons for N800.00. He could neither produce the documents of the car nor could he even produce the Registration numbers of the vehicle. He appeared to me to be a miserable liar caught in a tenter hook and struggling to disentangle himself. The wave of lies he has told in Exhibit D has caught him as the engine and chasis numbers of the car he said he bought from two unknown persons have been proved beyond reasonable doubt from the totality of the evidence before me to be those of the car of the deceased. There is also sufficient evidence before me that the deceased drove the said car to the house of the accused on 18/12/80, parked it in front of the house of the accused at Kurma Asabe, Kano, and the deceased slept in the same room with the accused on that fateful night. It seems to me that the confessions in Exhibit B – the statement of the accused dated 27/12/80 is more consistent with the evidence of the prosecution witnesses in this case. It appeared to me as a statement emanating from a settled mind after the shock and horror of a brutal murder that has been whittled down by the efflux of time. I am satisfied that Exhibit B is a voluntary confession of the accused as it is very consistent with the evidence of the prosecution witnesses in this case”.

The Appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal, but that Court (Wali, Akpata and Babalakin, J.J.C.A.) on 11/6/85 substantially dismissed his appeal – the conviction and sentence on culpable homicide punishable with death were affirmed while the conviction and sentence for theft were disallowed and substituted with conviction for criminal misappropriation. The appellant was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment plus a fine’ of N1,000 or in the alternative a further 2 years’ imprisonment. The appellant then appealed to this Court. Five grounds of appeal were filed in this Court. I do not propose to set all of them down as the argument in the appeal centred around grounds 2, and 4. They were in these terms:

“(2) The Court of Appeal erred in law and misdirected itself when having arrived at the conclusion that there was a sudden fight between the appellant and the deceased as envisaged by the provisions of Section 222(4) of the Penal Code, the Court went further to hold that the sudden fight in the instant case is not the type of sudden fight that reduces the enormity of the offence and that the act of the appellant in beheading the deceased was callous and brutal and indefensible.

Particulars of Error and Misdirection

(i) There was no evidence that the appellant was the one who beheaded and cut off the right arm of the deceased.

(ii) There was no evidence as to when the cutting off of the head and arm of the deceased took place whether it was before or after the death of the deceased.