CORAM
KARIBI-WHYTE JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT
NIKI TOBI JUSTICE, SUPREME COURTDAHIRU MUSDAPHER JUSTICE, SUPREME COURTGEORGE ADESOLA OGUNTADE JUSTI
PARTIES
MICHEAL OJI OGBU APPELLANTS
RESPONDENTS
AREA(S) OF LAW
SUMMARY OF FACTS
The accused was tried and convicted for the murder of his father. He was sentenced to death by hanging. He did not deny that he shot at his father, which resulted in his father’s death. But he claimed that he did so in obedience to a spirit forcing him to do so.
HELD
The Supreme Court held that the fact that appellant claims not to have known what he was doing at the time of the commission of the offence by itself is not evidence of insanity
ISSUES
Whether the evidence of the accused alone as to the defence of insanity is insufficient to establish or prove insanity
RATIONES DECIDENDI
ESSENTIALS FOR DEFENCE OF INSANITY
“In order to establish the defence of insanity it must be shown that:-
(a) the prisoner was at the relevant time, suffering either from mental disease or from natural mental Infirmity;
(b) that the mental disease, or the natural infirmity was such that, at the material time, the prisoner was as a result deprived of capacity to understand what he was doing or to control his actions or to know that he ought not do the act or make the omission.” Per OGWUEGBU, J.S.C
CASES CITED
Onyekwe v. The State (1988)1 N.W. L.R. (part 72)565 at 572- 577
Onakoya v. R. (1989)4 FSC150; (1959) SCNLR 384
STATUTES REFERRED TO
The Evidence Act
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1979
The Criminal Code