Hayatu Umar V. The State (2018)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

KUMAI BAYANG AKA’AHS, J.S.C.

This is a substantive appeal not interlocutory (as described in the introduction of the respondent’s brief). It is against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Sokoto Division in Appeal No. CA/S/20C/2013 delivered on 28 March, 2014 which affirmed the conviction of the appellant for the offence of culpable homicide punishable with death by the Sokoto State High Court. The appellant was sentenced to death by hanging on 25 June, 2012 by Abass J. (as he then was) in Charge No.SS/18C/2010.

The facts leading to this appeal are as follows:-

On 22 November 2009, which was a Sunday and Illela market day, the appellant went to the deceased’s house thrice to look for him but did not meet him. On the 3rd occasion PW4 who is the deceased wife asked him why he was looking for her husband and he answered that someone wanted the deceased to use his camel to carry goods. On the fourth visit, the appellant met the deceased and they went out together on the camel. PW6 saw the appellant riding on the camel with the deceased. The deceased did not return to his house and an alarm was

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raised. On the next day which was Monday, PW5 who is a nephew of the deceased went in search of him and found his corpse in Wauru and the camel was nowhere to be found. He then reported the matter to the police and his friend also informed some influential people in the community. He was one of those who accompanied the police in a vehicle to the scene where the corpse lay and they carried it to the village and later to the hospital where autopsy was carried before the body was released for burial. In the course of the investigation PW3 recorded the appellant’s statement in Hausa which he later translated into English. The statement recorded in Hausa and its English translation were tendered and admitted as Exhibits E and E1 respectively. Exhibit E turned out to be confessional statement but the appellant who testified as DW1 denied knowledge of anything. He said he was at his place of work when the Police went and arrested him and took him to Gada Local Government Secretariat and from there to the Police Station located in the Local Government without informing him about any offence. He said he was beaten while protesting his innocence about the offence. As a

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result of the beating he received some injuries. He was so manhandled that he could not remember what he said. He denied knowing the 2nd accused or that he went looking for the deceased. He also told the Court that he did not volunteer any statement to the Police. When he was cross-examined about the deceased, he said it was in the Police Station in Gada Local Government that he heard about the deceased’s name and that he never knew him before. He said he had never met PW4 and it was only in Court that he knew her.

The learned trial Judge considered the evidence presented to the Court and found that the evidence against the accused was circumstantial and reasoned that since the deceased was last seen alive in the company of the 1st accused, he 1st accused had explanation to give as to what led to the death of the deceased and in the absence of such explanation, the Court would be justified to draw the inference that he was the one who killed the deceased. The trial Court convicted and sentenced all the accused persons to death based on their confessional statements for which corroboration was found in the evidence of the prosecution witnesses. Each of

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them was given 5 years imprisonment with hard labour for the robbery offence.

The appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal Sokoto and it was dismissed. He felt aggrieved and further appealed to this Court and his counsel Boma Ozobia Esq raised three issues for determination as follows:-

1. Whether in view of the contradiction between the retracted confessional statement of the appellant and the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses allegedly corroborating same, the Court below was right to have affirmed the decision of the trial Court Ground 1
2. Whether the decision of the lower Court that the prosecution successfully proved beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant is guilty of conspiracy, murder and robbery to warrant his conviction and sentence to death by hanging is supportable by the evidence adduced at the trial.

Ground 3

3. Whether the lower Court was correct to hold that the circumstantial evidence before it was sufficient to establish the conspiracy to commit the alleged offences when same was not proved Ground 2

On his part, Suleiman Usman Esq. the Attorney-General of Sokoto State who settled the brief of the