Bamayi Mustapha was kept in Prison for ten whole years over no offence committed! It took trial Court six years to conclude a trial in which only one witness each testified for the Prosecution and the Accused person.
The first and only prosecution witness (PW1) admitted conducting no investigation at all and could not confirm all alleged three robbery escapades of the Accused.
There was no single victim and none was interviewed. No single registration number of several vehicles he was alleged to have robbed between 2013 and 2016. Yet the lower Court in the absence of not a single evidence convicted him on an alleged confession, and curiously not for the armed robbery he had allegedly confessed to but for robbery as lesser offence and sentenced him to 21 years.
Upturning the sentence, the Court of Appeal Makurdi division said: “There is no doubt, in my mind, that before the lower Court, save the extra judicial statement of the Appellant, there was neither any direct eye witness account or circumstantial evidence of all or any of the alleged three robbery escapades of the Appellant. Curiously, even the PW1 admitted clearly that of all the three alleged robbery escapades of the Appellant he can only affirm one of the alleged robbery incidents, but did not say from what source he could affirm the said one incidence having admitted that he never carried any investigation of the allegation against the Appellant but merely took his statement as in Exhibit A.”
In addition, Justice Biobele Georgewill in the penultimate court’s leading verdict said: “Now, the PW1, the only witness to the Respondent, was emphatic that he did not affirm any of the allegation through any independent investigation he carried out. Thus, even his affirmation of one of the three alleged robbery incidents was based strictly on the content of Exhibit A. It was on the face of this obvious and palpable lack and dearth of any evidence, of any form at all, that the lower Court had, relying solely on the Exhibit A, convicted the Appellant, and curiously not for the armed robbery it believed he had confessed to but for the lesser offence of robbery. Honestly, how the lower Court arrived at this finding remains so strange as there was no one singe reason proffered by the lower Court for this finding that while Exhibit A is a confession to armed robbery but did not prove armed robbery but nonetheless it can sustain conviction for robbery.
“My lords, this is one appeal, going by the complete lack of evidence outside of Exhibit A, and the total absence of any form of investigation by the Respondent as even admitted by the PW1, that the learned Deputy Director, M. J. Abokee Esq., ought to have displayed the rare kind of candor of prosecuting attorneys of old, who do not support convictions, which on the facts, evidence and applicable law, they believe are not correct even though in favor of the State. I commend to all prosecuting attorneys of these present times the candor of the great Prosecuting Attorneys of yore as displayed in John Mgboko V. The State (1972) LPELR – 1872 (SC), where the Prosecuting Attorney, one L. A. Iyagba Esq., now of blessed memory, found himself unable to support a conviction for murder against the Appellant, while acceding to conviction for the lesser offence of manslaughter…”
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Aghast at Mustapha’s dreadful odyssey, Ikeazor Akaraiwe, SAN remarked: “Appeal taken on 6/2/2024 and by the time judgment was delivered under one week and accused person set free he had already spent ten years!!! What a tragedy of a system of administration of criminal justice despite all the efforts at reforms.”
JUDGMENT-24C-MAKURDI-20211
