Ufot George & Anor v. The State (1971)

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Parties

Ufot George
Sunday Stephen (Alias Udo Obodo)  – Appellant(s)

AND

The State – Respondent(s)

MADARIKAN, J.S.C.

The appellants were charged with murder contrary to section 319 of the Criminal Code and were, on the 13th November, 1970, convicted by Ete I. in the High Court, Uyo (charge no. HU/33C/70) and sentenced to death.

One of the eye-witnesses to the killing of the deceased was Sampson Akpan Aduep (P.W.2). He testified that after evening service on the 26th April, 1970, he was informed that two deserters from the “biafran” army were beating up someone; and that on approaching the scene, he saw the 2nd accused holding the hands of Udo Davis and the 1st accused piercing a knife through the abdomen of Udo Davis. Blood gushed out from the abdomen of Udo Davis and he fell down. The 2nd accused then ran away. After struggling with P.W.2 for a while, the 1st accused also succeeded in running away. As the victim, Udo Davis, was being carried in a big basket to the house of P.W.2, he died on the way.

Dr. Cookey (P.W.1) who performed a post-mortem examination on the corpse of the deceased deposed that he saw a penetrating wound at the lower part of the abdomen of the deceased which punctured the colon thereby enabling faeces to escape from the colon to the abdominal cavity. This resulted in faecal peritonitis which, in his opinion, was the cause of death. He also stated that the wound could have been caused by a sharp instrument like a knife or dagger and that it could not have been self inflicted.

In his statement to the police (exhibit B), the 1st accused stated than when he and the deceased were engaged in a scuffle, a knife dropped from the hand of one Michael Benson, and that as he and the deceased continued to struggle, he did not know how the knife managed to penetrate into the abdomen of the deceased. But in his evidence at the trial, the 1st accused gave a more detailed account of the events that led to the death of the deceased. He stated that:

“We passed Michael Benson and his wife on the road. Then we met Udo Davis who was of the same extended family with Benson. He was on a sandy stretch of the road. Then we were about to pass him the bicycle wheels went deep into the sand and the bicycle wobbled and we were about to jam Udo Davis. He pushed us and we fell, 2nd accused got up and pointed his finger at Davis asking him why he did that. I called the 2nd accused to leave him adding that perhaps he was mental. Davis left 2nd accused and came up to me and asked my why I said he was mental. He met me and we started to fight. Michael Benson ran up and threw down his cap and the knife he borrowed from me exhibit A. Michael Benson beat and kicked me. His wife held him saying he should not do so, adding that she thought he was going to separate us. She dragged him away. Then Udo Davis got on top of me as I lay face upwards. He picked up exhibit A and tried to stab me with it. I held it and we struggled for it. Somehow, I do not know how, the knife pierced his stomach during the struggle. I was still on the ground. It is not true that I stood and stabbed Davis as narrated by P.W.2 and P.W.3.”

The defence of the 2nd accused was that he was present when the 1st accused and the deceased were fighting; that Michael Benson arrived at the scene and instead of separating them, he started to hit the 1st accused; that he (2nd accused) dragged Benson away and when he came back to the scene, he noticed that the deceased had been wounded.

In a reserved judgment, the learned trial judge accepted the evidence of the prosecution witnesses, rejected the defence of both accused persons and convicted them as charged. This is an appeal against that judgment.

It is convenient to deal with the appeal of the 2nd appellant first. As stated earlier, the case for the prosecution was that it was the 1st appellant who stabbed the deceased. The only part taken by the 2nd appellant was that he held the hands of the deceased.

Commenting on the evidence in this regard, the learned trial judge said: