The Supreme Court has affirmed the death sentence passed on a farmer and father of five, James Afolabi, who was found guilty by the Kogi State High Court and the Court of Appeal for the murder of a Fulani man identified as Abubakar Mohammed.
A five-man panel of the apex court, in a unanimous judgment delivered on Friday, held that there was no basis to disturb the concurrent finding of the trial and judgment of the lower courts in their previous judgments.
Kogi-born Afolabi was convicted and sentenced to death by the Kogi State High Court in Lokoja in 2012 relying on Afolabi’s confessional statement to the police, where he claimed to have shot Mohammed on the chest for straying into his (Afolabi’s) yam and cassava farm on February 27, 2009.
On March 22, 2012, the Court of Appeal in Abuja dismissed his appeal against the judgment and upheld the decision of the trial court, after which he took the matter to the Supreme Court.
Delivering the lead judgment in the appeal marked: SC/181/2012 on Friday, Justice John Inyang Okoro held that although the prosecution could not produce an eye witness 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 eye witness 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.
The apex court also sided with the lower court in concluding that the intention of the appellant was to kill the victim, ruling that “In the instant case, the appellant states emphatically, in Exhibit D (confessional statement), adjudged to have been freely and voluntarily made, that he aimed his gun at the chest of the deceased at close range and shot him.
“It was his further evidence that the deceased fell down and could not move again. At that point, he ran to the village head and reported that he had killed a man.
“In the circumstance, did he intend to kill the man? I had earlier stated in this judgment that a person is taken to intend that natural and probable consequences of his act.
“So, when the appellant aimed his gun at the chest of the deceased and shot it, did he intend to keep him alive? I do not think so. At least he intended to cause him grievous bodily harm.
“And, in view of the force of a gunshot aimed at the heart, the engine room of a man’s life, it can safely be concluded that the appellant intends to kill the deceased on his action, the report he made to the village head notwithstanding.”
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