Prosecution not bound to call every eyewitness -SC

In the present case, I am satisfied that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, and has thus discharged the burden of proof placed on it. In this light, I resolve the issue in favour of the respondent, and dismiss the related grounds of appeal. The next issue is whether the court below was […]

In the present case, I am satisfied that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, and has thus discharged the burden of proof placed on it. In this light, I resolve the issue in favour of the respondent, and dismiss the related grounds of appeal.
The next issue is whether the court below was right in affirming the judgment of the trial court in the face of irreconcilable contradictions in the prosecution’s evidence.
 The learned counsel made heavy weather of these contradictions. It is however the submission of learned counsel for the respondent that it is not every discrepancy, contradiction and/or inconsistency that will destroy the credibility of witnesses. Such discrepancies, contradictions, and/or inconsistencies must be substantial to affect the case of the prosecution.
A careful perusal of the alleged discrepancies and contradictions show that they are not substantial.
In the circumstances, the court below was right in affirming the judgment of the trial court, and so I answer this issue in the affirmative. Ground no. (3) in the notice of appeal, to which the issue is married fails and it is dismissed.
The third issue is, whether the trial judge made proper evaluation of the confessional statements of the Appellant contained in Exhibits B and C before relying on it to convict the Appellant.
I find no justification in the Appellant’s quarrel at this stage, when he in fact had the opportunity to object to its admission, and he didn’t. Be that as it may the confession in Exhibits B and C were enough to warrant the conviction of the Appellant. I find solace in the words of Wali JSC in the case of Idowu v. State 2000 12 NWLR part 680 page 48, which reads thus:-
“If the confessional statement is satisfactorily proved, a conviction founded on it without more, will be sustained by an appellate court. See The Queen v. Obasa (1962) 1 All NLR 645; Paul Onochie 7 ors v. The Public 1966 NMLR 307; Obue v. The State 1976 2 SC 141 and Jimoh-Yesufu v. The State (1976) 6 SC 167.”
I am fortified by the above and I am satisfied that the confession in exhibits B and C could sustain the conviction, and rightly sustains it.
Indeed there are other evidence which not only corroborated the contents of Exhibits B and C but equally showed that the contents were true. Example of this is an excerpt of the judgment already reproduced above on the owner of the cutlasses.
Then the following piece of evidence:-
“On 13-09-2006 there was a marriage in my house for my daughter by name Fatima. The accused person heard that I received some money. On that day at about 8 p.m. four persons including the accused person came to my house. All of them were armed with cutlasses one of them came to me in my room. The accused person went inside my wife’s room while the remaining stood outside my house.”
In his judgment the learned trial judge made the following evaluation and findings:-
“In the case at hand the agreement reached by the accused and his other conspirators was to steal with violence, (sic) the accused in both Exhibits B and C state that they actually stole but the evidence before me did not establish stealing against the accused. PW4 and PW5 were emphatic that the accused entered the room of PW4’s wife but in the confessional statements the accused stated that he was outside the house while his friends went inside to carry out their common intention.
I will prefer the story of the accused because it looks more probable. Both PW4 and PW5 stated in their evidence that it was dark and raining at the time the incident took place. I believe this evidence and in addition I find as a fact PW4 did not have direct contact with the accused in his house so also was PW5 who was not living in the same house with PW4. The witness wants this court to believe that the accused entered the  room of PW4’s wife but the woman who was visited in her room by one of the conspirators was not called as a witness. The only reasonable inference that I can draw from this scenario is that it could be any of the four conspirators that went into the room of PW4’s wife.
Also PW4 in his testimony did not mention any sum of money or valuable item was stolen either from his room or that of his wife.
The accused who I believe his story that he did not enter PW4’s house and whom the evidence before me does not suggest that he had the opportunity to know from his friends whether or not their mission was successful may not be saying the correct thing when he said they stole the sum of N2.000.00 from PW4.”
A careful perusal of the confessional statement and the evidence of PW1 reproduced above clearly show that some of the contents of Exhibit ‘B’ were corroborated by the evidence of PW4, i.e the fact that dowry of his daughter was the object of the attempted robbery, and that more than one persons invaded the complainant’s house on the day of the incident are abundant corroboration. Also the fact that cutlasses were mentioned in both evidence confirms a sort of synergy. The excerpt of the judgment I have reproduced above is to my mind a superb evaluation of the evidence before the learned trial judge by him, for he painstakingly pin-pointed and punctured some salient points and evidence.
Then there is the following in Exhibit B:-
“During the robbery I was outside, while the three others were inside the house of the complainant, and I later matcheted one of the victims by name Haruna Musaige ‘m”’.
P.W.4 in his evidence testified thus:-
“When the accused was arrested, he struggled to free himself and in the process he inflicted injury with the cutlass he was holding on one Haruna Lawal who was living with Labarau Mohammed.”
The said Labarau Mohammed who testified as PW5 corroborated the above pieces of evidence thus:-
“On getting to the house, we saw the accused person coming from the room of P.W.4.s wife. We saw him with a cutlass. He ran and we pursued him with a stick and he fell down. He got up and continued to run. We hit him again and he fell down. In the process of arresting him he inflicted injury on the hand of one of us by name Haruna.”
Again, the above is a perfect corroboration of the content of Exhibit B, the confessional statement. All these pieces of evidence in fact convinced the trial judge of the truthfulness of the confessional statements.
In fact the overall evidence confirms that there were ample evidence outside Exhibits B and C to test their truthfulness, to sustain the conviction of the Appellant and the affirmation of the judgment of the court below. See Emeka v. State 12 NWLR part 734 page 666, Egboghonome v. State 1993 7 NWLR part 306 page 383, and Obasa v. State 1965 NMLR 118.
In the present case the prosecution met the requirements.
            The lower court in affirming the judgment of the trial court rightly found as follows:-
“I agree completely with the learned Director of Public Prosecution and indeed the lower court that the confessional statements met with the necessary criteria for the ascription of probative value by the court and apart from the said confessions, the evidence of the PW4 who was the victim of the attempted robbery and his neighbour the PW5, who partook in his arrest that night, having sufficiently corroborated the confessional statements to warrant the conviction of the Appellant.”
I endorse the above finding in its entirety. In the light of the above reasoning I answer this last issue in the affirmative, and dismiss ground (4) of appeal. This appeal is on concurrent findings of two lower courts, which this court has on several occasions in a plethora of authorities cautioned should not be disturbed, unless they are not supported by credible evidence, and have occasioned miscarriage of justice. See Sobakin v. State 1981 5 SC. 75, and Igwe v. State 1982 9 SC 114.
This case definitely does not fall into this category of miscarriage of justice. In the circumstances the appeal deserves to fail in its entirety. I affirm the decisions of the two lower courts and dismiss the appeal.