different political party group that why they wanted to undue me. I know that I
have committed an offence, please forgive me that is all my statement.
The ipse-dixit of the appellant in Exhibit P3, undoubtedly, was a confessional
statement of his admission in respect of the charge against him. Exhibit P3 has all
the trappings of the requirement in Section 28 of the Evidence Act, 2011 and the
law is well settled to the effect that once an accused person makes a statement
which states categorically that he committed the offence with which he was
charged, he can be convicted upon that confessional statement. Kasa v. The State
(2008) 2 SCNJ 375 at 423; Abdullahi & Ors v. The State (2013) 5 SCNJ (pt. II) 453 at
473 474. The Supreme Court was very emphatic in Basil Akpan v. The State (2008)
4 5 SC, (pt. II) 1, to the effect that a confession in a criminal trial is the strongest
evidence of guilt on the part of an accused person. It is stronger than the
evidence of an eye witness because the evidence, borrowing from the daily
axiom, comes from the mouth of the horse, who is the accused person. What
better evidence than that? He knows or knew what he did and he says or said it in
Court. Is there any need for any further proof? I think not. - per Niki Tobi, JSC.
In the instant case, the appellant, at the trial apart from not objecting to the
admission into evidence of Exhibit P3, did not allege that he was beaten or
tortured in making the confessional statement. If that were the situation, the
learned trial judge would have been duty bound, to conduct a trialwithin-trial, in
order to determine the voluntariness or involuntariness of the said confessional
statement. Osuagwu v. The State (2013) 1 SCNJ 33 at 58 59. However, since that
Sélectionner le paragraphe cible3
Se connecter à un paragraphe
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Ajouter à la table des matières