Sule Iyanda Salawu V. The State (1972)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report

T. O. ELIAS, C.J.N. 

On February 24, 1971, the accused was at the Oshogbo High Court convicted by Ogunkeye, J., of the murder of one Ramota Abeo and sentenced to death. His appeal to the Western State Court of Appeal was dismissed and the conviction and sentence were affirmed on June 28, 1971. When his appeal to this court was heard on August 14, 1972, we dismissed it, and now give our reasons for so doing.

The facts were briefly as follows: the 2nd to the 5th prosecution witnesses deposed that they, the deceased and the appellant lived in the same house at Ogbagba village in the Ede District of Western State of Nigeria, and that the 2nd prosecution witness is appellant’s uncle, the 3rd prosecution witness is his mother, the 4th prosecution witness is his father, the 5th prosecution witness is appellant’s uncle’s (2nd P.W.’s wife), while the deceased was appellants’s father’s (4th P.W.’s) junior wife.

They further deposed that on April 16, 1968, all six of them had their evening meal together in the common hall of their house, and retired to their respective bedrooms between 9 and 10 p.m; that, shortly thereafter, they heard a loud exclamation in Yoruba “Sule pa mi o!” meaning in English “Sule is killing me!” or “Sule, you are killing me!”; that, on rushing out of their rooms, they found Ramota Abeo lying on the floor of the common hall covered with blood and already dead, but showing a severe laceration at the back; that the accused, who shared his father’s room because he had no separate one of his own, was nowhere to be found.

The appellant’s uncle (2nd prosecution witness) then set out that night for Ede where he lodged a complaint at the Local Government Police Station whence he was directed to the Nigeria Police Station at Oshogbo where four police constables were detailed to accompany him back to Ede. There, the appellant, who had apparently been arrested and detained by the Ede Local Government Police, was found and taken to Ogbagba village by the four policemen and the 2nd P.W.

On arrival at the scene of the crime, the party saw the corpse of the deceased, collected it together with an axe found by the side of the body and removed them to Oshogbo, where the 1st Prosecution witness, the Medical Officer in charge, performed a post mortem examination on the corpse. In order to obtain the Pathologist’s opinion in respect of the suspected blood stains on the clothing and the axe, the latter were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory at Oshodi in Lagos. When, in due course, the appellant was charged with the deceased’s murder, he made a statement, Exhibit A (A1 in English translation) to the 6th prosecution witness, the investigating police officer, and later confirmed it before the 7th prosecution witness, a superior police officer, who countersigned Exhibit A.

The appellant at the trial denied having made the statement (Exhibit A), but admitted that part of the statement which said that he fought the deceased because she did not give him food. He also said that he could not remember the time of the deceased’s death or any subsequent event until his arrest by the Ede police. After a careful and detailed review of the evidence, the learned trial Judge convicted the appellant of the murder of Ramota Abeo and sentenced him to death.

Of the five additional grounds of appeal filed by Mrs. Solanke, learned counsel for the appellant, only the following three grounds were argued before the Western State Court of Appeal:

“1.  The learned trial Judge erred in law by his failure to investigate whether or not the appellant was of sound mind in view of:-

(a)  the following finding by the Judge: ‘Here indirectly in my view, the defence was raising the defence of insanity. I have to say that the fact that a person makes a meaningless or inconsistent statement does not prove he is insane at any particular time.

(b) The nature of the evidence of the appellant in his own defence.

2. The learned trial Judge misdirected himself when he held that upon the circumstantial evidence before him, the guilt of the appellant was the only reasonable inference which was possible and thereby came to a wrong conclusion.

3. The learned trial Judge misdirected himself when he held as follows:-

There are facts, in my view, outside the confession which make it probable that the accused did make it, particularly that he did say he used an axe to inflict a cut on the back of the deceased. I therefore find that the statement attributed to the accused was made by him and being a confessional statement, it concludes the case against him’”.