OKAFOR V. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

• Pages: 215-217

OKAFOR V. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE



215

this case will not Eo

Ipso

resuscitate the interim order for stay of operation of the

order of 8th of November, 1963, and it would be left to both parties to seek legal

advice as to what further steps they will take in the present circumstances.

On the facts of the application before us, we have come to the conclusion that

5



we should exercise our discretion as provided in Order 7 Rule 17(4) and grant the

application as prayed. We accordingly set aside the order of the 18th of May 1964,

dismissing this appeal and order that this appeal be restored on condition that

within seven days hereof the appellants comply with the conditions of appeal im-

posed by the Registrar in this case. The appellants must pay to the respondent

10



the costs of this application fixed at five guineas.

Appeal restored.

15



OKAFOR V. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

BEN OKAFOR

20



V

COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA

BAIRAMIAN,



J.S.C.

25



COKER,



J.S.C.

IDIGBE,



J.S.C.

8th October, 1964.

APPELLANT

RESPONDENT

SUIT NO. SC 230/1964

Criminal Law - Corroboration - Where no item of evidence taken singly implicates

30



the defendant.

ISSUE:

1.

Whether singular items of evidence found to be insufficient to implicate an

accused in the commission of an offence, can, after being united, become

35



corroborative evidence sufficient to implicate him.

FACTS:

Robbers, of whom one was masked, stopped a van and robbed two passen-

gers of currency notes in wrappers. On a later day when the police chanced to

meet the defendant coming out of another's house, he ran off and threw away some

40



currency notes; and he was arrested. He showed the police a well and there they

found wrappers. But neither those wrappers nor those currency notes were ident-

ified as part of the stolen money. The victims, of whom one had known him did

not mention the defendant when they reported the robbery, after his arrest they

identified him. The judge thought the identification weak and looked for evidence

45



implicating him in the robbery, and he found it in the circumstance of his running

away from the police, of his showing them wrappers at the well, and of his putting

up a false alibi. He adopted the theory that the masked robber must have been

the defendant who had masked himself to avoid recognition by the passenger who

knew him.

50



On appeal it was argued for the defendant that the items of evidence regarded

as corroboration were not such, and on the other side that, though taken alone

none of them was, taken together they did amount to corroboration.