Sambo Alh. Galadima V. The State (2017)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

AMIRU SANUSI, J.S.C.

This appeal is against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Kaduna division (the Court below) delivered on the 8th of February, 2013 which affirmed the decision of Jigawa State High Court (the trial Court).

The facts of the case giving rise to this appeal are summarized below. The appellant along with four other co-accused persons were arraigned before the trial Court charged with the offence of culpable homicide punishable with death, contrary to Section 221(b) of the Penal Code read with Section 79 of the same code. They were said to have caused the death of their relation one Safiya Nomau by attacking her and beating her with sticks and a hoe on her head and other parts of her body. In its efforts to prove the allegation against the appellant, the respondent as prosecution, called five witnesses and tendered weapon (a hoe) used on her which was admitted in evidence and marked Exhibit 2. Also two Writs of Possession of a land issued by an Area Court tendered in evidence through PW3, were admitted and marked Exhibits 1 and 1A. They were issued by Babura Area Court over a

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disputed piece of land in favour of one Usman Magu and Alhaji Galadima, the father of the appellant herein At the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, two of the accused persons were discharged by the trial Court for want of proof of the allegation against them, while the appellant and two other co-accused persons continued with the trial. After the prosecution/respondent closed its case, the appellant opened his defence. He testified for his defence as DW1 and called two other witnesses who testified as DW2 and DW3. In the end, the trial Court found the appellant and his other co-accused guilty, convicted and sentenced them to death.

Aggrieved by his conviction and sentence by the trial Court, the appellant and the other co-accused person appealed to the Court below separately. The Court below on the 8th of February 2013 affirmed the conviction and sentence of the appellant and his co-accused earlier made by the trial Court and subsequently dismissed their appeals which they filed and argued separately at the Court below on separate notices of appeal dated 20th of February, 2013 each containing six grounds of appeal.

Further dissatisfied with

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the judgment of the Court below, the present appellant appealed to this Court vide a notice of appeal dated 20/2/2013 but filed on 21/2/2013. In his Brief of Argument filed on 24/4/2013, settled by one Nasiru Audu Digiri Esq., three issues were distilled from the grounds of appeal for the determination of this appeal

The issues are reproduced hereunder:-

1. Whether from the facts and circumstances of this case, the learned trial judge and the Learned justices of the lower Court thoroughly and properly considered the defence of provocation or all the defences available to the appellant before convicting and sentencing the appellant to death instead of terms of imprisonment. (Ground one, three and five)
2. Whether the learned trial judge and learned justices of the lower Court were right in confining themselves to part of evidence of the prosecution and defence witnesses and totally ignoring Exhibits 1 and 1(a) in convicting and sentencing the appellant to death (Ground six).
3. Whether there are lapses in the investigation of the episode that led to the death as well as in the evidence presented to prove the charge under Section 221 of

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the Penal Code against the appellant (Grounds two and four).

Upon being served with the appellant’s Brief of Argument, the respondent on 18/11/2015 filed its Amended Respondent’s Brief of Argument. It however adopted the three issues for determination raised in the appellant’s brief as reproduced above.

The appellant’s learned counsel decided to argue all the three issues for determination together in view of their similarity. I think he is right on that, hence I will also treat the three issues together, but before doing so, I will first of all deal with the Preliminary Objection raised and argued in the Amended Respondent’s brief.