Matthew Oke Onwumere V. The State (1991)

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O. I. AKPATA, J.S.C. 

This appeal raises a number of legal issues, prominent amongst which is the question whether when a post-mortem examination has been performed medical evidence becomes imperative to establish the cause of death, regardless of other credible evidence pointing to the cause of death.

The accused, Matthew Oke Onwumere, was arraigned before the Umuahia High Court charged with the unlawful killing of Titi Ajuobi at Usakaukwu Iriam Ikwuano on the 28th day of October, 1977, an offence punishable under section 319(1) of the Criminal Code Laws of Eastern Nigeria, 1963.

The simple facts of this case, which were accepted by the trial Judge, are that the deceased, Titi Ajuobi, was on her way home from the market in company of three or more other women when she was attacked with a “stick” by the accused, now the appellant. The deceased died virtually at the scene of the incident following the attack. Although no medical evidence was available to ascertain the cause of death, the learned trial Judge was satisfied that the accused was guilty of the offence of murder and sentenced him to death. The accused had made a confessional statement to the police the contents of which he retracted in his defence at the trial.

The appeal of the accused against his conviction to the Court of Appeal was dismissed. He has now appealed to this Court on a number of grounds. Before I advert to the nature of the complaints against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, it is necessary I set out in fuller detail the facts of the case and the legal defences proffered by the defence.

It was the case for the prosecution that on the 27th October, 1977, the deceased was on the road returning from Ariam Market in company of Alagwonu Usuwa, (P.W.2), Nwanaro Nnochiri, (P.W.3), and other women when they came across the appellant who told them not to pass through the road. In furtherance of his order to the women, he hit P.W.2 on the hand with a stick. This attack prompted the women to run to a nearby compound, that is, Inekpe’s compound and took refuge in a room there. The appellant in pursuit, damaged the door leading to the room with a “big stick” and caught up with the deceased who could not escape through the back door as the other women did.

According to P.W.2, before she ran into the bush through the back door, she saw the appellant hitting the deceased with a stick, and while in the bush she heard the deceased shouting that “Oke Onwumere (the accused) has killed me”. The stick with which he hit the deceased was bigger than the stick he had earlier used on herself, P.W.2. When later on the same day, P.W.2 and P.W.3 came out of the bush they found the deceased dead and her corpse lying in the same Inekpe’s compound.

On 28th October, 1977, the following day after the incident, P.W.5 Sgt. Felix Nwosu served a coroner’s form on Dr. A. B. Chukwuezi of Ramat Specialist Hospital, Umuahia who subsequently performed a post-mortem examination on the corpse of the deceased. The doctor was however not available to testify at the trial of the accused because he had travelled out of the country for further studies. The corpse of the deceased was identified to the doctor by P.W.6, Samuel Ajuobi, a brother of the deceased. The defence objected successfully to the tendering in evidence of the autopsy report made by Dr. Chukwuezi.

P.W.5 arrested the accused on the same day 28th October, 1977, and he made the statement Exhibit B. in Ibo language. The accused confessed in the English version of the statement, Exhibit C., to the police thus:

“I know Titi Ajuobu. She is from Ndijeagwa Usakaukwu. On Nwo Ariam Market day, when I was spreading the gospel, people saw me, and I told them to pass and they came and passed. Sunday Usuwa called me and I came to him. When he showed me his sick child, I prayed for him. When I came back, I started looking for those women who ran away when they saw me; and I found them. I asked they why they were running and they said that I was mad. I told them to come out of the house and they refused. I used a stick in damaging the door shutter and started chasing them. The people I chased were Nwebu James (f), (2) Alabonu Usuwa (3) Nwanaro Onuoha Nnochiri and Titi Ajuobu. The place I damaged the door shutter was in the house of Inekpe Ogwuta of Nkumokpo Usakaukwu, when I had chased out three other women. I started searching for Titi. When I came back, I saw her in the house of the wife of Inekpe’s son. I flogged her with a stick. When I flogged her she shouted “Chinekee”, Chinekee”, I started hitting her with a club, I pushed the club into her virgina: (sic). I told her that her virgina, (sic) which she said nobody would sex has been sexed today. She was there crying and I left her and went away.

It was last year that I went to her to demand to have sexual intercourse with her and she refused saying that she never liked my attitude. I approached her with wine but she still refused. When I reached home, it was said that I had killed Titi but I told them that she was not dead. When they said that she had died, I went to the place where I knocked her down but I did not see her, so I came home and slept. The Amalas came and held me and tied me, leg, ironed me and carried me to police station Ariam.”

As Exhibit B was a confessional statement it was taken along with the accused to the Divisional Police Officer Ikwuano, Sylvester Ekeocha, P.W.1, who read over the statement to the accused person in Ibo language. He admitted making the statement and said it was made voluntarily without any promise or threat. P.W.1 endorsed it accordingly. The endorsement is Exhibit’ A’.

In her evidence, P.W.2 claimed that the accused who was married with children was normal and that he did not suffer from any mental trouble. P.W.4 Manzu Abaroha, an uncle of the accused, also made the point that the accused was not a mad man. He however added that there was a time in 1977 when the accused was ill and that certain members of a church prayed for him and that he recovered. Under cross examination he answered thus:

“The accused drinks excessively. There are so many drinking bars in our village and on that day of the incident, the accused could have taken a lot of drinks”.