Akpan Akpan Obot V. The State (1972)

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T. O. ELIAS, C.J.N 

This is an appeal from the judgment of S.J. Ete, J., delivered in the High Court of the South-Eastern State in the Uyo Judicial Division on February 18, 1972, in which he convicted the accused of the murder of one Mfon Ufot Udo Ikpah, contrary to Section 319 of the Criminal Code of the former Eastern Nigeria. When we heard this appeal on October 19, 1972, we dismissed it as without merit, and now give our reasons for doing so.

The case for the prosecution was that, on January 29, 1970, the deceased left her husband’s house and went to a nearby stream for the purpose of immersing in it some cassava roots in order to ferment them. The husband, Ufot  Udo Ikpah (P.W. 2) was clearing some bush for farming at about 11 a.m., that day when he heard people talking and rushing away, and, on asking one of them, he was told that the accused had killed someone.

He went home to find his wife’s room locked and went in the direction of the stream in search of his wife who had a seven-month-old pregnancy and whose headless corpse he found lying on dry land near the stream. Her basin lay in the water. Ezekiel Akpan Uko (P.W.3) said that he was preparing food in his house when he heard people rushing from the direction of the market and saying that the accused had killed somebody.

He then rushed into the main road but, on hearing two gun shots, he ran back home.  When he later visited the Ibesit police station, he saw the accused there, and, on being asked, he identified a blood-stained singlet as that of the accused who is of his own family. He said that the accused himself admitted that he was the owner.

Under cross-examination, he said that “he never heard that the accused ever quarrelled with the deceased, nor that he was ever possessed by the devil or that he was lunatic.” The evidence of Dolly Akpan (P.W.4) was that, in the morning of the day of the incident, she was returning from her farm at Utu when she met the accused “who waved her back with both hands shouting at her not to proceed that way.” She ran back and was pursued by the accused, who held a matchet and a stick, until she made good her escape through the bush to their village. She had never met the accused until that day when he confronted her.

Gregory Etim, (P.W.5) said that, in the  course of his duties, he saw a crowd of people at the Idung Ntukuma village where on enquiry  he saw told certain things. He later saw the accused on the road chasing passers-by, holding a matchet and wearing only a pair of knickers. He said that he warned the accused not to chase people with his matchet and that, as he walked towards the accused, the latter “ran into a Church compound, went into a house there and locked himself inside.” P.W.5 added that –

“the accused refused to open the door when he knocked and asked him to go; he sent someone to tell his sergeant to send him help. Later he said P.C. Monday Isemin arrived, and with the help of certain persons they broke the door and got the accused. He said the accused was covered with blood but his matchet was not stained.”

The investigating police officer, Okon Robert (P.W.6), said that as he was recording P.W.2’s complaint, the accused was brought in by P.C. Isemin, who handed him the matchet taken from the accused, two other matchets, a yellow singlet and a basin. He added that, on examining the accused, he found some blood stains on his left toe. He then locked up the accused and went with P.W.2 to the scene where he saw blood stains. At the village he saw a headless corpse which he caused to be conveyed to Opobo General Hospital where it was identified to P.W.2, the doctor. He said that he handed over to P.W.1 the two matchets and the singlet so that they should be sent to Lagos for laboratory tests.

He later charged and cautioned the accused who then volunteered a statement in which he admitted, among other things, that the singlet was his own. Under cross-examination, he said that the ‘accused did not talk at random on the day he interviewed him but was hostile,” and that “nobody told him accused had attacks of insanity.” P.C. Monday Isemin (P.W.7) stated that he and P.W.5 held the accused after the door of the house he had run into was forced open, that the accused had told him that he “had fought somebody” and that he did not know at first that the accused had committed any offence until he met P.W.2 who was crying and who told him that someone had killed his wife; P.W.2 later took him to “the spot in the bush where he saw the headless body of a pregnant woman covered partly with leaves.”  P.W.7 concluded his evidence by saying that he searched in vain for the head and, on digging out a spot where he thought it was buried, he unearthed two matchets instead; he also found in the stream a dented basin and a yellow singlet, of all of which things he took possession.

The defence of the accused was a complete denial that he killed the deceased or anyone else, that he chased P.W.4 with a matchet or that he told P.W.7 that he fought with anyone, that he ever admitted the singlet to be his, and that blood was found on his toe. He, however, adopted his statement to the police as part of his defence and, while admitting under cross-examination that he went to the swamp that day, he denied having seen the deceased on his way or that the deceased used to bewitch him; but he said that he used to be sick and occasionally felt that he was mental.

Mr. Umoh, learned counsel for the accused, tried unsuccessfully to establish the insanity of the accused. He also argued that malice on the part of the accused against the deceased was not proved. Learned counsel for the accused, in cross-examination of Dolly Akpan, suggested to her “that she knew that the accused was possessed of the devil,” but she denied she ever heard that. The same questions were put to and answered in the negative by P.W.3, P.W.5, and P.W.6. The learned trial Judge observed in passing;

“Counsel in his address abandoned the line of defence his questions suggested, that is, insanity. I am satisfied however that insanity was what the questions were meant to prove.”

He then summarised his finding as follows:
“I am satisfied that, far from being insane at the time Gregory Etim encountered him, the accused was quite sane and that his abnormal speech and behaviour was due to the excitement of the moment when people were saying he had killed someone, and he was chasing people about, armed with a stick and matchet.When Okon Robert talked to him, he had resumed his composure, though still hostile.”

We think it right in this connection to recall the learned trial Judge’s earlier finding in respect of the report of Dr. O.E. Antia-Obong (P.W.1) who performed the post-mortem on the corpse of the deceased:

“The doctor said the accused was referred to him for examination as to his mental condition. He kept him under observation for thirty days, and at the end of that period he came to the conclusion that he was mentally sound.”

After a fairly thorough review of the evidence as to the identity of the killer the learned trial Judge concluded:

“The circumstantial evidence adduced is a very strong one, and it points to the accused as the killer of the deceased. Earlier on, I had asked the question why the accused’s yellow singlet was lying in the stream near the deceased’s basin and near the corpse. The accused had admitted in his statement to the Police that the singlet is his. I am satisfied from the evidence that it is his. So why does he deny ownership of it in Court The only reasonable explanation is that he knows that admission of ownership would be a proof of his connection with the deceased’s killing. I am satisfied myself that that is the case.”

We were of the view that, in all the circumstances of this case, the conclusion of the learned trial Judge as to the guilt of the accused was the right one, and that the appellant was rightly convicted of the murder of the deceased and sentenced to death therefor. We accordingly dismissed the appeal.

SC.55/1972