OSHO V. THE STATE OF EKITI (2026)

Background

Osho v. The State of Ekiti concerned an appeal against the concurrent decisions of the High Court of Ekiti State and the Court of Appeal, Ado-Ekiti, which convicted Adekunle Osho of armed robbery and sentenced him to death by hanging. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous judgment delivered by Umar, J.S.C., dismissed the appeal and affirmed the conviction and sentence.

The prosecution alleged that on 14 November 2014, at about 8:30 p.m., Osho, Chinedu Ugwu and two other persons still at large attacked Chief Gbenga Ojo on Afao Road, Ado-Ekiti. The assailants were armed with a gun, robbed the victim of a Toyota Camry valued at N3,300,000 and N150,000 in cash, and shot him during the incident. The victim was taken to hospital, while his family reported the theft to the police after recalling that the vehicle was fitted with a tracking device.

The police tracked the vehicle as it travelled towards Benin through the Ijebu-Ode Road. Once it reached Benin, the vehicle was remotely immobilised and its location identified. The appellant was arrested only a few hours after the robbery while sitting behind the steering wheel of the stolen car. Ugwu was found in the back seat. The appellant was subsequently taken to the police station, where he made an extrajudicial statement, admitted in evidence as Exhibit B.

The victim testified before the original trial judge, who later retired. Before the retrial commenced before another judge, the victim died. His earlier evidence and cross-examination were admitted in the fresh proceedings as Exhibit F. Other exhibits included the appellant’s confessional statement, photographs of the injured victim, the victim’s police statement and the death certificate. The trial court convicted the appellant, and the Court of Appeal affirmed that decision.

Issues

1. Whether the appellant’s identity and participation in the armed robbery were sufficiently established by the evidence.
2. Whether the failure of the police to conduct an identification parade rendered the conviction unsafe.
3. Whether the issues formulated by the appellant were competent, given the alleged misstatement concerning the grounds from which they were distilled.

Preliminary Issue on Formulation of Issues

The respondent argued that the appellant had improperly formulated more than one issue from the same grounds of appeal and urged the Supreme Court to strike out both the issues and the relevant grounds. The Court restated the principle that issues for determination must arise from valid grounds of appeal. Although an issue may properly be distilled from two or more related grounds, it is generally incompetent to formulate separate issues from one ground where the ground does not support such a division. A ground of appeal should also not be argued under more than one issue.

However, the Supreme Court found that the respondent had misunderstood or transposed the appellant’s formulation. Upon examining the substance of the grounds and the actual arguments, the Court held that the first issue arose from grounds one and three, while the second issue arose from ground two. The mistaken description in the brief was therefore treated as an inadvertent misstatement rather than an actual incompetent formulation. The Court emphasised that appellate courts should examine the true relationship between the issues and the grounds, and should not allow technicality to defeat an appeal where no injustice or prejudice has been caused.

Ratio Decidendi

The Supreme Court held that an identification parade is designed to test the reliability of a witness’s identification, particularly where the accused was previously unknown to the witness and identity is genuinely disputed. It is not, however, an obligatory procedure in every criminal case. An identification parade may be unnecessary where the accused confesses and identifies himself as the offender, where he is apprehended at the scene or pursued and arrested immediately thereafter, where he was already known to the witness, or where there is clear and uncontradicted evidence identifying him.

A voluntary, direct, positive, precise and unequivocal confession is legally sufficient to ground a conviction. Exhibit B linked the appellant directly to the robbery. Although he later denied making the statement, the trial court evaluated the confession under the principles applicable to a retracted confession and found it consistent with the prosecution’s evidence. That finding was not successfully challenged on appeal. Consequently, the confession substantially removed any genuine dispute about the appellant’s identity and made an identification parade unnecessary.

Court Findings

The Court further found that Exhibit B was corroborated by the unshaken evidence of PW3, the police officer who participated in the arrest. The appellant was found behind the wheel of the same stolen vehicle only hours after the robbery, after the tracking device had led the police to it. This evidence was consistent with the appellant’s statement that he had acted as the driver of the gang.

The Court applied section 167(a) of the Evidence Act 2011, which permits a presumption that a person found in possession of stolen property soon after the theft is either the thief or a receiver, unless he gives a satisfactory account of his possession. The appellant’s possession of the vehicle, his position behind the steering wheel and the short interval between the robbery and his arrest raised a strong rebuttable presumption of involvement. His explanations were not cogent and did not displace the presumption.

The alleged inconsistencies between the victim’s prior testimony, Exhibit F, and his police statement, Exhibit G, were held to be immaterial. The documents consistently identified the existence of several armed robbers, the robbery of the vehicle and the respective roles of the participants. The fact that the victim particularly stated that he could identify Ugwu, whom he previously knew, did not contradict his evidence that Osho searched his pocket during the robbery. In any event, the Court held that even if the victim’s evidence were disregarded, the appellant’s confession and the evidence of his recent possession of the stolen vehicle were independently sufficient.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal. It affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Ado-Ekiti, which had affirmed the High Court’s conviction of Adekunle Osho for armed robbery under section 1(2) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act. The sentence of death by hanging was consequently maintained.

Significance

The decision reaffirms that an identification parade is a safeguard against doubtful or suggestive identification, not an automatic legal requirement in every prosecution. A clear and admissible confession may itself establish the identity and participation of an accused person. The judgment also illustrates the evidential importance of recent possession of stolen property under section 167(a) of the Evidence Act. Finally, it confirms that appellate courts may overlook an accidental misdescription of the grounds supporting issues where the issues are substantively competent, the respondent is not misled and no injustice results.