EJINIMA V. THE STATE

• Pages: 348-370

348

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NIGERIAN SUPREME COURT CASES

[1991] 2 N.S.C.C.

EJINIMA V. THE STATE

ANTHONY EJINIMA

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APPELLANT

V.

THE STATE

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RESPONDENT

APPEAL NO S.C. 97/1990.

SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA

UWAIS,

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J.S.C.

KARIBI-WHYTE,

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J.S.C.

NNAEMEKA-AGU, J.S.C.

A KPATA ,

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J.S.C.

BABALAKIN,

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J.S.C.

19th July, 1991.

Criminal Law and Procedure - Murder - Insanity - Defence of - How established - Onus on

an accused in relation thereto - Insane delusion - Defence of - When available to an

accused - Section 28 of the Criminal Code - Consideration - Confessional Statement

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c

of an accused - When solely sufficient to warrant a convict - Whether a court can admit

and conviction on a retracted confession.

Practice and Procedure - Concurrent findings of facts by a High Court and the Court of

Appeal - When may the Supreme Court interfere.

Word and Phrases - "Eccentricity" - Whether amounts to insanity - "Insane delusion" -

Meaning of

ISSUES:

1.

How is the defence of insanity established?

2.

What is the onus of proof on an accused person who seeks to rely on a defence

of insanity under section 28 of the Criminal Code?

3.

What is insane delusion and when does it avail an accused person?

FACTS:

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4

The accused person was charged with the offence of murder punishable under

section 319(1) of the Criminal Code, Laws of Eastern Nigeria, 1963. The prosecu-

tion's case was that the accused killed his three children on the same day, 16th

July, 1983, within his premises. Before the date of the incident the accused's two

wives, Veronica and Maria, had left him. The first wife bore two children (Nkiruka

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and Onuma) for the accused while the second wife bore him one child Ngozi. On

separation, Veronica took custody of Onuma and Maria took Ngozi while Nkiruka

lived with an elder brother of the accused.

According to the prosecution, on the day in question, the accused collected

his children from the custody of his two wives and elder brother, and took them to

his own premises. That same day the accused's brother, p.w.2 and p.w.3, saw the

three children in the premises of the accused and went to report to the police. It

E,111\111\AA V . THE STATE

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349

was on their return in company of p.w.6, a police sergeant, that they found the

three children slaughtered.

The accused made a confessional statement to the police in Ibo language

which was taken down in English and authenticated by the police as having been

5

voluntary. In the confessional statement, the accused admitted killing his three

children with cutlass, his reason being that his wife Veronica had given him some

poisonous native medicine which medicine was also worrying his children. And

since, according to him, he did not want to die and leave his children suffering, he

decided therefore to kill them and then to kill himself afterwards. But that the police

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came before he could kill himself.

However, in his testimony in defence, the accused retracted the statement he

made to the police. It was his defence in court that the three children were killed

by armed robbers. The learned trial judge rejected the accused defence and the

defence of insanity canvassed by his counsel. The trial judge was however,

15 satisfied that the accused was suffering from some delusion at the time he

committed the offence, but that since the situation he imagined, if it had existed

would not have exonerated him from guilt, the trial judge then convicted and

sentenced the accused to death on a charge that he murdered one of the children.

The accused appealed to the C:ourt of Appeal, complaining in his ground of

20 appeal that the decision of the trial judge was unwarranted, unreasonable and

could not be supported in law. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal, holding

that the accused did not prove that he was insane at the time he committed the

offence.

Still dissatisfied, the accused further appealed to the Supreme Court on the

25 ground, inter alia, that the Court of Appeal erred in law in upholding the conviction

and sentence to death of the accused by the trial court and in failing to consider

that the defence of delusion availed the accused.

HELD :

30 1. The surest way of establishing insanity is by medical evidence. Proof of

insanity can however be established from compelling evidence of eye

witnesses, particularly relatives of the accused, relating to his general

behaviour before, during and after the incident. The problem however in relying

on the evidence of relatives only without medical report or evidence is that

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there are certain traits in human beings, to varying degree, which are

sometimes mistaken for insanity. Some of them are irascibility, irritability and

quarrelsomeness. Persons afflicted with any of these traits to a high degree

are easily spurred to violence and wrongly regarded as being insane by the

uninformed.

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In the instant case, the excerpts from the evidence of prosecution witnesses

which learned counsel for the accused/appellant referred to as establishing

insanity at best fell within the traits, except that which touched on the

appellant's belief that he had been poisoned by his wife, Veronica. The onus

of proving insanity under section 28 of the Criminal Code is on the accused

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who should make available evidence to satisfy the court that he was insane at

the time he committed the offence. In effect it must be shown that the accused

at the time of killing the deceased was in such a state of mental disease or

natural mental infirmity as to deprive him of capacity to understand what he

was doing, or the capacity to control his action or of capacity to know that he

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ought not to do the act.

(See p.357, lines 48 - 52 & p.358, lines 1 - 4).

2. Insane delusion is a product of a disordered mind which imagines facts to exist

and adhered to against all evidence and reason to the contrary. Before the