NIGERIA: MAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR KILLING BIOLOGICAL FATHER IN AKWA IBOM

March 16, 2023:

Akwa Ibom State High court sitting in Etinan Local Government Area has sentenced one Moses Abdon Edo, aged 37, to death by hanging for killing his biological father, Abdon Peter Edo over a plot of land, Tribune Online reported on 14 March 2023.
The Court presided over by Justice Ezekiel Enang held that the convict, an indigene of Ikot Ukobo in Nsit Ubium LGA had confessed in his statement that he single-handedly killed his father in a broad daylight on 29 July 2015, in his house and buried him beside his son’s grave.
Justice Enang in a one-hour judgement said the convict, who is the first son of the deceased, also confessed that he pursued his father to the backyard of his old building and hit his head on the wall where he died on the spot for refusing to hand over landed property to him.
The Court held that once a confessional statement is positive, direct and unequivocal of fact, it is sufficient to secure the conviction of the accused even without the evidence being collaborated.
According to Justice Enang, in a charge of murder, what the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, are the ingredients of the offence that the deceased died and that the death was caused by the act of the accused to kill or cause him grievous bodily harm.
He held that by smashing his father’s head on the wall, the convict had intended to kill him.
Justice Ezekiel Enang found Moses Edo, an okada rider, guilty of murder and ordered that he should be hanged or a lethal substance injected inside him until he is dead.
The case, which was prosecuted by the State Ministry of Justice and defended by the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria, has laid to rest, eight years of prosecution of the matter at the trial Court.