The
Supreme Court has affirmed the death sentence handed out to a farmer and father
of five, Mr. James Afolabi.
In
a unanimous judgment yesterday, a five-man panel of the apex court held that
there was no basis to disturb the concurrent findings of the lower courts in
their previous judgments.
Afolabi,
an indigene of Kogi State, was convicted and sentenced to death by the Kogi
State High Court, Lokoja in 2012, having been found guilty for the murder of a
Fulani man, Abubakar Mohammed.
The
court relied on Afolabi’s confessional statement to the police, where he
claimed to have shot Mohammed in the chest for straying into his (Afolabi’s)
yam and cassava farm on February 27, 2009.
The
Court of Appeal, Abuja on March 22, 2012 dismissed his appeal and upheld the
decision of the trial court; a decision he appealed to the Supreme Court.
Yesterday,
Justice John Inyang Okoro, in the lead judgment, in the appeal marked
SC/181/2012, held that although the prosecution could not produce an eyewitness
at trial, it provided sufficient evidence, through its witnesses, “which gave
vent to the confession of the appellant.”
“And
in any case, this court held in Mohammed v State (2007) 11 NWLR (pt 1045) 303
at 230 paragraph F that where an accused person confesses to a crime, in the
absence of an eyewitness of the killing, he can be convicted on his confession
alone.
“For
all I have said, I hold a strong view that the court below was on a strong
wicket when it upheld the conviction and sentencing of the appellant upon
reliance on his confessional statements,” he said.
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