Judgment
BOLOUKUROMO MOSES UGO, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment) : Appellant and one Mohammad Abdullahi were tried and convicted before the High Court of Kano State for the offences of culpable homicide punishable with death of one Abubakar Shuaibu on the 9th day of March, 2015 and of conspiring to commit that same offence. The two charges read as follows: 1.
That you Abdulmalik Muhammad and Muhammad Abdullahi, adult, of Tarauni Local government, Kano State, within the Kano Judicial Division, on or about the 9th March, 2015 at about 1230 hrs along Ring Road, Unguwa Uku did agreed to do an illegal act to wit, committed the offence of Conspiracy punishable under Section 97 of the Penal Code (Cap 105) Laws of Kano State of Nigeria. 2.
That you Abdulmalik Mohammed and Muhammad Abdullahi, adults, of Tarauni Local Government Area of Kano State, within Kano Judicial Division on or about the 9th March, 2015 at about 12.30 hrs along Ring Road, Unguwa Uku did committed Culpable Homicide Punishable with death, in that you caused the death of one Abubakar Shuaibu of Tarauni local government area of Kano State by strangulating him in the neck and pushed him into the water with the intention of causing his death and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 221 of the Penal Code (Cap 105) Laws of Kano State of Nigeria 1999.” The case of the prosecution was that appellant and his co-accused person along with the deceased took the deceased’s motorcycle to the prosecution’s first witness (P.W.1) Nasiru Ahmad’s Workshop on the fateful 9th day of March, 2015 for vulcanizing work, deposited it with P.W.1 and all three of them crossed to the other side of the road and disappeared.
About four hours later, according to P.W.1, only appellant and his co-accused person returned to the workshop and were seen by P.W.1 trying to break the lock of the motorcycle, apparently to take it away. When P.W.1 asked appellant and his co-accused where the deceased was, they simply told him that they wanted to take the motorcycle away.
At that point, P.W.1 mentioned, he observed that appellant and his co-accused were drunk and were holding a bottle which he called ‘piya piya’ and were ‘malingering’, even as he added that both accused persons and the deceased were sober when they first went to deposit the motorcycle with him. He said he drew his colleague’s attention to what appellant and his co-accused person were trying to do and went to report his observations to the Police. Upon getting to Mariri Police Station, he learnt that the deceased had died.
