Mohamadu Adamu Vs The State (1973)

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G.B.A. COKER, JSC 

For reasons which are obvious on the records of appeal, the appellant stabbed Anna Emanuel, (a girl of some three months) to death. The mother of the girl stated that the appellant was her boy friend but that he was not the father of Anna. This apparently angered him, and so he decided to kill the child in the way he did. The evidence of the mother of Anna who was the 2nd P.W., (i.e. Alice Okoko), was that when she entered the room where her child lay, she met the appellant stabbing the child with one of the two knives which he held. He then chased her out of the room, still holding one of the knives and indeed inflicted some stab-wounds on her.

The learned trial Judge, rightly on the evidence before him, concluded that the act of the appellant amounted to culpable homicide punishable with death. There was no defence whatsoever to what must on any view of the case be considered a most brutal and savage attack on an innocent and helpless victim. We do not agree with the learned Counsel assigned that there was no evidence of identification of the corpse of the doctor who performed the autopsy. We think that the corpse was adequately identified; and indeed there was no issue about this at the trial of the appellant.

The appeal is dismissed and the conviction and sentence of the appellant are affirmed.

Other Citation: (1973) LCN/1709(SC)