MBAM V. STATE (2026)

Background

This appeal arose from the conviction of Ejike Mbam for the murder of Onyebuchi Enogo by the High Court of Ebonyi State, Abakaliki. The deceased and the appellant were relatives. The prosecution’s case was that the appellant accused the deceased of stealing his wristwatch and repeatedly demanded its return. On 1 August 2005, at about 8:00 p.m., the appellant encountered the deceased on a village road near his house and demanded the wristwatch. A fight followed. According to the prosecution’s account, the appellant picked up a bottle, broke it against a stone and stabbed the deceased in the neck. The deceased subsequently died from blood loss.

The appellant presented a different version. He claimed that two men attacked him at his home, that one of them broke a bottle and stabbed him, and that another wielded a matchet. He stated that he wrested the bottle from one of the attackers and stabbed him in self-defence before running to the police station. He also challenged the voluntariness and admissibility of his alleged confessional statement. The trial court conducted proceedings concerning the confession, later admitted the statement as Exhibit F, convicted the appellant and imposed the death sentence. The Court of Appeal, Enugu, affirmed the conviction, relying on the confessional statements and supporting evidence from the prosecution witnesses, including the pathologist.

The appellant further argued before the Supreme Court that the prosecution’s case was deficient because no eyewitness testified, that Exhibit F was improperly admitted, and that the trial-within-trial was wrongly terminated. He also contended that the evidence established self-defence and that a community chairman whose statement was tendered was a vital witness who should have been called.

Issues

1. Whether the Court of Appeal was right to affirm that the prosecution proved the offence of murder beyond reasonable doubt in the absence of eyewitness evidence and substantially on the basis of the appellant’s confessional statement.
2. Whether the appellant established the defence of self-defence under sections 32(3), 32(4) and 286 of the Criminal Code applicable in Ebonyi State.

Ratio Decidendi

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal and affirmed the concurrent decisions of the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The Court restated that murder requires proof beyond reasonable doubt of three essential ingredients: the death of the deceased; the act or omission of the accused which caused the death; and that the act or omission was intentional, with knowledge that death or grievous bodily harm was its probable consequence.

The prosecution is not required to produce an eyewitness in every murder trial. The essential ingredients may be proved through direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, a voluntary confessional statement, or a combination of these forms of evidence. The decisive question is whether the evidence is cogent, credible and convincing enough to establish every ingredient beyond reasonable doubt. In this case, the appellant’s confessional statement was direct, positive and consistent with the evidence concerning the injury and cause of death. A free, voluntary and unequivocal confession may sustain a conviction even without corroboration, although corroborative evidence is desirable. The evidence of PW1 and PW3 provided additional support.

The Court further held that a party alleging that the record of proceedings is inaccurate must formally impeach the record. The record transmitted to an appellate court carries a rebuttable presumption of correctness and authenticity. Since the appellant did not challenge the alleged discrepancy concerning the date of the ruling at the appropriate stage, he could not seek to impeach the record for the first time before the Supreme Court.

Court Findings

The Court rejected the appellant’s complaint that Exhibit F was improperly admitted. When the prosecution applied to discontinue the trial-within-trial and admit the statement, defence counsel stated that he had nothing to urge and left the matter to the discretion of the trial court. That conduct amounted to abandonment of the issue of voluntariness. A court is not required to conduct a “fishing expedition” to develop an argument deliberately abandoned by counsel. The Court also found that the appellant had been supplied with the materials necessary for his defence and that there was no credible basis for claiming that the confession was withheld from him.

On self-defence, the Court held that the defence is complete and exculpatory when properly established, but its constituent requirements must coexist. The accused must show an unlawful and imminent assault, that the force used was reasonably necessary, that it was proportionate to the attack, and that it was reasonable and justifiable in the circumstances. The appellant’s confession showed that he initiated the encounter by rushing the deceased on the village road and, during a fight, broke a bottle and stabbed him. That account did not establish an imminent peril justifying the use of lethal force. The statement of the community chairman, tendered through a police officer without calling its maker, was documentary hearsay and could not support the plea.

Finally, the Supreme Court emphasised that it will rarely interfere with concurrent findings of fact by two lower courts. An appellant must demonstrate that the findings are perverse, unreasonable, unsupported by evidence, or occasioned a miscarriage of justice. The appellant failed to meet that demanding threshold.

Conclusion

The appeal was dismissed unanimously. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered on 2023-02-14, which had affirmed the appellant’s conviction and sentence for murder by the High Court of Ebonyi State.

Significance

The decision confirms the evidential flexibility available to the prosecution in homicide cases: the absence of an eyewitness is not fatal where a reliable confession or compelling circumstantial evidence proves the charge. It also reinforces the strong evidential value of a voluntary confession, the procedural consequences of counsel’s failure to contest admissibility, and the strict conditions governing self-defence. More broadly, the judgment illustrates the restraint exercised by the Supreme Court when reviewing concurrent factual findings and warns litigants that alleged defects in the record must be formally raised and proved at the earliest opportunity.