CORAM

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Ibrahim Mohammed Musa Saulawa -Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Jummai Hannatu Sankey -Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Moore Aseimo Abraham Adumein -Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Obande Festus Ogbuinya- Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Abubakar Sadiq Umar-Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

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PARTIES

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IDRIS SANNI

APPELLANTS 

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THE PEOPLE OF LAGOS STATE

RESPONDENTS 

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AREA(S) OF LAW

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CRIMINAL LAW, EVIDENCE, APPELLATE JURISDICTION, CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, CONFESSION, CONSPIRACY, ROBBERY, ALIBI, EVALUATION OF EVIDENCE, PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE, PERVERSION OF JUSTICE, MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

 

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SUMMARY OF FACTS

On August 26, 2007, at about 8 p.m., four masked men armed with weapons robbed Mrs. Omowunmi Adedeji of her handset and one hundred thousand Naira (₦100,000) at her residence at Adedeji Street, Oke Afa Ibeshe, Ikorodu, Lagos. After the robbery, the perpetrators fled the scene. Mrs. Adedeji raised an alarm, which prompted neighbors and Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) members to cordon off the area. One of the robbers, Stanley Ossai, was apprehended, and he subsequently led to the arrest of the appellant, Idris Sanni.

The other two suspects remained at large. Following investigation, the appellant and Stanley Ossai were arraigned before the High Court of Lagos State on two counts: conspiracy to commit armed robbery and armed robbery contrary to Sections 403(A) and 402(2)(a) of the Criminal Code, Cap. C17, Vol. 2, Laws of Lagos State, 2003. Both defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.

During the trial, the prosecution called three witnesses (PW1-PW3), while the defense called three witnesses (DW1-DW3). Several exhibits were tendered, including the appellant’s confessional statement (Exhibit A1). On March 3, 2011, the trial court found both defendants guilty, convicted them, and sentenced them to death.

The appellant, dissatisfied with the judgment, appealed to the Court of Appeal. In its judgment delivered on April 11, 2014, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal in part, substituting the conviction for armed robbery with lesser offenses of conspiracy to commit robbery and robbery, and sentenced the appellant to 21 years imprisonment.

Still aggrieved, the appellant further appealed to the Supreme Court.

 

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HELD

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1. The appeal was dismissed.

2. The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal which convicted the appellant for conspiracy to commit robbery and robbery and sentenced him to 21 years imprisonment.

3. The Court held that the appellant’s confession in Exhibit A1 was sufficient to ground his conviction for conspiracy to commit robbery and robbery, as it was made voluntarily and without objection when tendered at trial.

4. The Court rejected the appellant’s defense of alibi as it was not raised with sufficient

particulars to enable investigation, and it was contradicted by the appellant’s own confession which placed him at the scene of the crime.

5. The Court found that there was no perversion of justice or miscarriage of justice in the lower court’s decision as the conviction was based on compelling evidence against the appellant.

 

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ISSUES

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Whether the lower Court was right to convict the Appellant for the lesser offence of robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery on the grounds that the Appellant did not object to the tendering of his retracted statement and his alibi was not raised in good time and was therefore an afterthought?

 

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RATIONES DECIDENDI

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CONFESSIONAL STATEMENT – EFFECT OF ADMITTING A CONFESSIONAL STATEMENT WITHOUT OBJECTION:

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“In an abiding loyalty to the expectation of the law, based on the characteristics of confession catalogued above, I have given a clinical audit to the confession, exhibit A1, which colonises pages 11 – 15 of the record, with the finery of a toothcomb. Admirably, it is disobedient to woolliness and ambiguity. As already noted, there was no shred of protestation at the time of tendering the document, exhibit A1. That implies that it was voluntary: made freely at the volition of the appellant. In criminal law, a confessional statement admitted in evidence without objection by the defence carries some legal implications. It signifies that its owner made it voluntarily, agrees with everything in the statement and attests to the truth of the role he played in the of the alleged crime.”– Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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CONFESSION – CHARACTERISTICS OF A VALID CONFESSION THAT CAN GROUND A CONVICTION:

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“In the same vein, the exhibit A1 discloses an express content thereby making it positive. At once, it bears a direct relationship with the commission of the alleged offences. In effect, it has satisfied the necessary requirements of confession that a Court of law can solely rely on in convicting an accused person. These hallmarks, exhibited by exhibit A1, puncture the appellant’s ascription of inchoateness to it.”– Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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ADMISSIBILITY OF CONFESSIONAL STATEMENTS – LEGAL POSITION ON RELIANCE ON CONFESSION FOR CONVICTION:

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“It is a rudimentary law that once a confession is relevant, it is admissible against an accused who made it save it is excluded in the manner proscribed by the provision of the Section 29(2) of the Evidence Act, 2011. Doubtlessly, the law grants to the Court the unbridled licence to solely rely and base conviction on a free, compelling, direct, voluntary, unequivocal, cogent and positive confession”– Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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DEFINITION OF ROBBERY – STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS UNDER LAGOS STATE LAW:

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“In the provision of Section 401 of the Criminal Code Law of Lagos State, robbery is defined thusly: Any person who steals anything, and, at or immediately before or immediately after the time of stealing it, uses or threatens to use actual violence to any person or property in order to obtain or retain the thing stolen or to prevent or overcome resistance to its being stolen or retained, is said to be guilty of robbery.” – Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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EFFECT OF A CONFESSION – PRE-EMINENCE OF CONFESSIONAL EVIDENCE:

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“In the expansive landscape of criminal jurisprudence, the kingly position of confession in the colony of evidence cannot be over-emphasised. Under our procedural law, a confession has been crowned with the deserved toga of the best and strongest evidence, stronger than that of an eyewitness… By a confession, an accused person surrenders himself to the law and becomes his own accuser”– Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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CONSPIRACY – NATURE AND PROOF OF THE OFFENSE OF CONSPIRACY:

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“Conspiracy is a confederacy, or an agreement, between at least two persons with the aim of committing unlawful or criminal act or doing a lawful act by an illegitimate means. Being an agreement, express or implied, it takes at least two persons to conspire, id est, one person cannot be guilty of conspiracy. The actual agreement by the conspirators, owing to the fact that it is always shrouded in the fog of secrecy, constitutes the offence without any necessity to prove that the criminal act has been committed. Due to its usual clandestine nature, it is not always proven by direct evidence, but by circumstantial and inferential evidence deducible from the proved acts of the conspirators in evidence.” – Per OBANDE FESTUS

OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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PROOF OF CONSPIRACY – USE OF INFERENCES TO ESTABLISH CONSPIRACY:

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“The philosophical basis for using inferential mode to prove conspiracy is located in the immortal words of William Shakespeare in Macbeth: There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. Not even a clairvoyant can forecast accurately the intent of a man.

Even the devil himself knoweth not the intention of a man”– Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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ALIBI – ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF THE DEFENSE OF ALIBI:

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“It is imperative to x-ray the essential elements of the defence of alibi. Etymologically, alibi, like most legal terminologies, traces its lexical paternity to the Latin language. It is an amalgam of alius (other) and ibi/ubi (there/where). Its English version denotes elsewhere.

An accused who wishes to take refuge under the defence is expected to raise it timeously, at the earlier opportunity of his contact with the investigating security agencies, with the necessary particulars of his whereabouts and those with him on the day of the incident.

Thereafter, the duty shifts to the prosecution to investigate the alibi and affirm or disprove it.

It is destroyed by contrary evidence fixing the appellant at the place of the crime.” – Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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DESTRUCTION OF ALIBI – EFFECT OF CONFESSION ON THE DEFENSE OF ALIBI:

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“To top it all, the appellant’s confessional statement, exhibit A1, still haunts and lurks in the shadows of the defence. In the document, the appellant made an unreserved admission of his presence at the locus delicti on the date of the commission of the offence. In the eyes of the law, such a fixture demolishes and disables the defence of alibi and renders it lame, it cannot fly” Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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PERVERSION OF JUDGMENT – WHEN A COURT’S VERDICT IS CONSIDERED PERVERSE:

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“A verdict of Court is perverse when: it runs counter to the pleadings and evidence before it, a Court takes into account matters it ought not to take into consideration, a Court shuts its eyes to the evidence, a Court takes irrelevant matters into account or it has occasioned a miscarriage of justice.– Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE – DEFINITION AND SCOPE:

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“In the province of the law, a miscarriage of justice signifies .A grossly unfair outcome in judicial proceedings as when a defendant is convicted despite lack of evidence on an essential element of crime.” – Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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CONTRADICTIONS IN EVIDENCE – EFFECT OF CONFESSIONAL STATEMENT ON CONTRADICTIONS:

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“The appellant, in order to perforate the decision, weaved the defence of contradictions in the evidence of PW1 and PW2 with regard to the recovery of the weapons used in prosecuting the offences. Those are pockets of infinitesimal differences that are accommodated in the wide province of discrepancy which cannot ruin the case on account of immateriality to the ingredients of the offences. In any event, the settled position of the law is that the moment an accused person has voluntarily and unequivocally confessed to the commission of a crime, any agitation about contradiction falls into the four walls of irrelevancy.– Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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PROOF BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT – STANDARD OF PROOF IN CRIMINAL CASES:

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“Incontestably, proof beyond reasonable doubt does not evince proof beyond all shadow of doubt… In the legal parlance, proof beyond reasonable doubt is attained when the evidence is so strong against a man as to leave only a remote possibility in his favour which can be dismissed with a sentence of course it is possible but not in the least probable” – Per OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C.

 

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CASES CITED

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STATUTES REFERRED TO

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1.Criminal Code, Cap. C17, Vol. 2, Laws of Lagos State, 2003

2. Evidence Act, 2011

3.Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended)

 

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