Grace Abraham Akpabio & Ors. V. The State (1994)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

IGUH, J.S.C. 

The appellants, Grace Abraham Akpabio, Effiong Udo Ekong and Edet Jonathan Nte, were on the 29th day of February, 1988 arraigned before the High Court of Akwa Ibom State, holden at Uyo, charged with the offence of murder contrary to Section 319 of the Criminal Code. The particulars of the offence charged are as follows:-

“Grace Abraham Akpabio, Effiong Udo Ekong and Edet Jonathan Nte on 22nd September, 1987 at No.2 Morris Eka Lane, Uyo in Uyo Judicial Division murdered one Anthony Michael Asuquo.”

Each of the three appellants pleaded not guilty to the charge and the trial proceeded.

The prosecution called seven witnesses at the trial. The 1st appellant gave evidence and called one witness. The 2nd and 3rd appellants called no evidence but rested their defence on the case of the prosecution.

The substance of the case as presented by the prosecution is that on the 22nd day of September, 1987, the 1st appellant after the day’s business, returned to her residence at between 9.00 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. In her parlour, she met the deceased, one Anthony Michael Asuquo, along with P.W.1 who is the 1st appellant’s half sister and the 1st appellant’s children watching the television. There and then she reminded the deceased who was her nephew that she had warned him not to visit her residence any more. She then went into her bed room, changed into another dress and asked P.W.3, her servant, to accompany her somewhere. The 1st appellant then went out with P.W.3 and collected the 2nd and 3rd appellants.

Upon returning to her residence with the 2nd and 3rd appellants, the 1st appellant ordered P.W.3 into his room adjacent to her parlour and instructed him to lock the door. This directive was obeyed. The 1st appellant next ordered P.W.1 and her three children who were watching the television to be locked into another room close to the parlour, leaving the deceased person behind in the said parlour.

What followed was given in evidence by P.W.1 thus –

“As I was in the house, I heard when the 1st accused said that the Anthony should be treated as they use to treat thieves. Anthony had completed his secondary Class Five. The 1st accused issued the instructions to people who were in the parlour but I did not know them as I was in the room. The people to whom she issued the instructions were not in the parlour at the time we were watching the television. They came in after we were locked into the room. As we were in there, I heard when Anthony was crying and begging that he should no longer be beaten or else he would die. I was in the room when I heard all these. We were in the room for long but I had no watch on so I did not know the exact time. Finally we left the room – the four of us.”

When they eventually came out of the room, they saw the deceased lying down face downwards in the parlour with his two hands and legs tied together backwards. The 1st appellant and other people including the 2nd and 3rd appellants were there. The 2nd and 3rd appellants, in parlour, had whips of whistling pine in their hands. There were other sticks in the parlour. The deceased had been severely flogged and beaten up. P.W.2 the grandmother of the deceased was later invited to the scene by the 1st appellant who asked her to take him away. She was afraid when she saw the deceased’s condition but only wept and went away. P.W.I concluded her evidence in chief as follows:-

“It was Grace Akpabio who loosened the said Anthony and asked him to get up and go away. Anthony got up and walked to the Store which is near to our house. As he arrived at the Store, the owner of the store chased him away and told him to return to the compound of the 1st accused. From the store to Grace Akpabio’s house is about twenty metres. The deceased was staggering as he got up and moved towards the store. When the store-man asked him to return to the 1st accused’s compound, Anthony went back. He was still staggering as he went back. When Anthony staggered back to the compound, we went to bed and slept. When we woke up the following morning, I saw the corpse of Anthony at the back-yard of Grace Akpabio. I had seen the body of the deceased. There were whip lashes all over the body of the deceased. Before I went to sleep, I had seen the body of the deceased. There were whip lashes all over his body before he died. At the time we were watching the television, there was nothing wrong with the body of the deceased at all”

As was observed by the Court of Appeal, and this is fully borne out by the record of proceedings, P.W.l was subjected to very long and rigourous cross-examination by two learned counsel but she remained firm and unshaken in her testimony. The evidence of P.W.4, Dr. Etop Sampson Akpan who performed post mortem examination on the body of the deceased is relevant. He said –

“I performed the post-mortem. I examined the body. I did not find any satisfactory evidence as to what could have been responsible for the death. I therefore had to open up the body. The corpse was still fresh with multiple bruises all over the body, on the face, on the trunk, on the upper and lower limbs. On opening up, the essential finding was on the skull. There I found that the suture line, that is a line where the two halves of the skull meet, had been completely separated from each other. There was a lot of bleeding from the blood vessel of the brain which was collected between the skin and the skull because there was no open wound on the head for it, the blood to come out. Such injuries can be sustained through various means by the use of various instruments. The instrument used must have been a blunt one. A knock with a hard fist could cause it. A club or piece of stick could cause it. A piece of iron could cause it. The instruments must have been applied by someone with some force on the person. The bruises resemble those which could have been caused by a teacher who uses cane on his pupil. My conclusion was that the deceased have died as a result of neurogenic shock that is a shock that results from injury to the nervous tissues of which the brain is the major one.”

Under cross-examination, P.WA explained as follows –