Judgment
MUSA DATTIJO MUHAMMAD, J.S.C. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): My lords, this appeal being against concurrent findings of fact(s), we need to remind ourselves that the Court, especially where the findings turn on the credibility of witnesses, hardly intervenes. However, where the findings are shown to be perverse the Court will, all the same, reverse the findings. See SUNDAY V. STATE (2017) LPELR-42259 (SC), WOLUCHEM & ORS V. CHIEF GUDI & ORS (1981) 5 SC 291, CHINWEDU V. MBAMALI & ORS (1980) 3-4 SC 31, AJIBOYE V. FRN (2018) LPELR – 44468 (SC) and ATOLAGBE V. SHORUN (1985) LPELR-592 (SC).
A decision, a finding, is said to be perverse if it does not draw from the evidence on record and/or where the Court wrongly apply legal principles to correctly ascertained fact(s) and by so doing occasion injustice. See QUEEN V. OGODO (1961) 2 SC 366, MOGAJI V. ODOFIN (1978) 4 SC 91 and BARRISTER CHIDI NOBIS-ELENDU V. INEC & ORS (2015) 6 SCM 117 at 134.
In the instant appeal, are the findings of the two lower Courts perverse to warrant our intervention?
The appellant, alongside one other person, was arraigned at, tried and convicted by the Ekiti State High Court, hereinafter referred to as the trial Court, for being in unlawful possession of firearms contrary to Section 3(1) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provision) Act, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004. He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. His appeal against the trial Court’s judgment dated 16th March 2017, was filed on 4th May 2017 at the Ekiti Division of the Court of Appeal hereinafter referred to as the lower Court.
The appeal was dismissed on the 5th day of December 2019 by the lower Court.
Dissatisfied, the appellant has, by a notice filed on 18th December 2019, further appealed to this Court.
Of the two issues the appellant distilled in his brief settled by Ikechukwu Uwanna, Esq., the most apposite and on which basis the appeal will be determined reads:- “Was the lower Court right to uphold the decision of the trial Court in view of the totality of evidence before it?”
The similar issue formulated in the respondent’s brief settled by Julius Ajibare, Esq., as arising for the determination of the appeal is:- “Whether the Court below was not right in affirming the decision of the learned trial Court that the Respondent, considering the totality of evidence adduced before the trial Court, proved the one-count charge of unlawful possession of firearms beyond reasonable doubt against the Appellant”.
