Edet Effiong Ukut V. The State (1995)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

WALI, J.S.C.

The appellant Edet Effiong Ukut was charged with the murder of Joshua Etim Inyang, contrary to Section 319(1) of the Criminal Code. At the end of the trial he was found guilty as charged and sentenced to death.

Briefly, the facts of the case as presented by the prosecutor are as follows:-

On the fateful day, that is 21st April, 1985, the appellant, a troop leader of the 6th Calabar Scout troop, in company of four (4) other boys Scout, drove to Idang Primary School football field in a Subaru car. It was about 5.20 p.m. at the time they reached their destination and the appellant was driving the car. At the time, P.W.2, Francis Eyo Nsa was at the play ground and watching football. He saw the five boys scout alighted from the car and walked straight into the field. On their sight, another boy called Emmanuel, who was also there watching football, took to his heels and the boys scout pursued him.

When they could not catch up with him, they came back to the field, held Effiong Etim Inyang whom they alleged to have alerted Emmanuel of their approach and started beating him with cable wires, telling him to produce Emmanuel. P.W.2 rescued Effiong from them. It was at that time that the deceased, who is Effiong’s brother came to the scene and asked the accused and his mates why they were beating his brother. The accused blew his whistle and the 4 other boy scouts surrounded the deceased and started beating him. The deceased grabbed and held one of them. The accused used the pen knife he was holding in stabbing the deceased with it on the right hand side of the back.

The deceased died on the spot from the stab wounds.

Before convicting the accused the learned trial Judge considered the defences of provocation, self defence and accident and found that none of them was available to the accused. The learned trial Judge thereafter sentenced the accused to death by hanging.

The accused’s appeal to the Court of Appeal was also dismissed for want of merit. He has now further appealed to this court.

Henceforth the accused and the prosecution will be referred to as the appellant and the respondent respectively in this appeal.

Both the appellant and the respondent filed and exchanged briefs of argument.

In the appellant’s brief three issues were formulated and these are:-

“(a) Whether there was proper evaluation of the legal evidence available in this matter to sustain the conviction of the appellant by the court below.

(b) Whether the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt in the light of material contradictions and inconsistencies in the evidence of the prosecution witnesses.

(c) Whether the concurrent findings of the court below and the lower court that the defence of self-defence was not available to the appellant, were not perverse having regard to the prevailing circumstances of this case.”