Alhaji Rauph O. Gaji Vs The State (1975)

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B. A. COKER, J.S.C.

The present appellant, Alhaji Rauph Omobolaji Gaji, is a legal practitioner of many years standing and the appeal before us is sequel to the unfortunate circumstances which led to his trial and conviction by the High Court, Kaduna, on a charge of culpable homicide. Before the High Court he had been charged as follows:-

“That you RAUPH OMOBOLAJI GAJI on or about the 23rd day of December, 1972, at Kaduna, in the North-Central Judicial Division did commit culpable homicide punishable with death in that you caused the death of Cordelia Ego Ejiofor by beating and kicking her with your fists and legs with the knowledge that her death would be the probable consequence of your act and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 221 of the Penal Code and triable by the High Court.”

On arraignment before the learned trial Judge, he was asked to plead and the court so ordered. He refused to plead however and it is regrettable that learned counsel appearing for him was responsible for advising him not to plead even though the court had so ordered him to plead. This episode is however of trifling importance and clearly has no significance on the case and trial of the appellant, for Section 188 of the Criminal Procedure Code, Cap. 30 (Laws of Northern Nigeria) provides as follows:-

“188. If the accused pleads not guilty or makes no plea or refuses to plead or if the judge enters a plea of not guilty on behalf of the accused, the court shall proceed to try the case.”

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The section obviously takes the position in hand for in the events that happened, the court proceeded to try the case of the appellant. Learned Senior State Counsel, who appeared for the prosecution, then began to open his case in the usual way when learned counsel for the appellant observed:-

“AMACHREE: We will challenge the statements of Gladys Wey, Friday Igwegbu, Solomon Iyedoh, Isaac Oshonoike, any statement made to police by the accused, so state counsel should not refer to their evidence in his opening address.”

We shall refer later on in this judgment to this objection of learned counsel for the appellant for the case of the appellant himself evinced only precious little of its facts and the defence in substance is massively built around the aforesaid objection of learned counsel.

Evidence was called by the prosecution, which the learned trial Judge accepted, that on the 3rd day of December, 1972, at his residence in Kaduna, the appellant did beat up one Miss Cordelia Ego Ejiofor so severely that she eventually died thereof; that thereafter the appellant threw her corpse into the side of the road some ten miles away from Kaduna on the Kachia Road where pieces of the remains were subsequently discovered and retrieved by the police and that indeed it was the appellant himself who had taken the police to the spot where the remains of Miss Ejiofor were unearthed. The evidence was all one way as the appellant gave no evidence at all nor called any witnesses of his own. Seventeen witnesses were called by the prosecution and at the end of the case for the prosecution, the learned trial Judge made the following notes:-

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“NASIR A.G.: That is the case for the prosecution.

COURT: Has the defence any witness other than the accused person or a witness to character only

AMACHREE: No. I am not making a no-case submission, but we will rest our case on the prosecution evidence.

COURT: Explains Section 236(1) C.P.C. explained to accused.

ACCUSED: I do not wish to give evidence.”

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