Basiru Nalado V. The State (2019)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

KUMAI BAYANG AKA’AHS, J.S.C.

The appellant and two other accused persons, Sirajo Muhammad (Dandos) and Nura Sabo were tried on a two count charge of robbery under Section 1 (2) (a) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act Cap 398 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990 as amended. They were convicted and sentenced to death based on their confessional statements which were admitted as Exhibits “A, “B” and “C”. Nine witnesses testified in the trial. All the accused testified.

The appellant gave evidence as DW4 and called Nalado Adamu (DW 9) who testified on his behalf. Nura Sabo (3rd accused) testified as DW2 while Garba Ibrahim (DW1) and Shamsu Namadi (DW 6) testified in his favour and Sirajo Muhammad Dandos (2nd accused) testified as DW3 while Umaru Abdussamad (DW 5) Sarkin Aska (DW 8) testified on his behalf.

In his judgement delivered on 26/11/2006, S. A. Mahuta CJ Katsina State did not find any corroborative evidence in support of Exhibits “A, “B”, “C” but inspite of this held as follows: –

“it is also my candid opinion that based on the confessional statements of the accused

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persons as contained in Exhibits “A”, “B” and “C” the Court is left in no doubt that the accused persons committed the robberies of 29th January, 2002 and the one in April of the same year.”

The appeal to the Court below was dismissed, hence the further appeal to this Court. The appellant filed his Notice of Appeal containing 8 grounds from which he distilled the following two issues for determination:-

1. Whether in the face of the appellant’s unchallenged evidence of how his confessional statement was extracted from him the Court below was in error in affirming the learned trial Judge reliance on the confessional statement alone to convict and sentence the appellant for armed robbery. Grounds 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7.
2. Whether the Court below was in error in holding that the learned trial Judge properly evaluated the evidence before him in convicting the appellant and sentencing him to death for armed robbery. Grounds 4, 5 and 8.

On issue 1, the appellant submitted that the appellant was not cross-examined in the trial within trial over his claim that he was beaten, shot at and shown a dead body before he was forced to thumbprint Exhibit “A”.

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While conceding that the inadmissibility of Exhibit “A” may no longer be open to the appellant, he argued that since there was unchallenged evidence that his thumbprint on Exhibit A was preceded by gruesome torture, it imposed a duty on the two Courts below to look for corroboration, no matter how slight showing that Exhibit A was true.

Learned counsel for the respondent submitted that a confessional statement which is found to be direct, positive and unequivocal as to the admission of guilt by an accused person is enough to ground conviction even without any form of corroborative evidence. He said that the confessional statement contained in Exhibit A is quite enough to ground conviction of the appellant because it satisfied all the requirements of the law as it was subjected to trial within trial on the claim by the appellant that he was tortured, beaten and shot with a gun before thumb printing the statement. The statement was carefully scrutinized before the learned trial Chief Judge relied on the contents to convict the appellant. He further submitted that Exhibit A passed the test prescribed under Section 27 of the Evidence Act which defines a

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confession and in view of the lack of evidence of shooting by the appellant, the learned trial Chief Judge had to rule in favour of the prosecution.