The appellant herein was charged with murder contrary to Section 316(3) and punishable under Section 319 of the Criminal Code Cap. 30 Vol. 11 Laws of Ondo State of Nigeria in that on or about the 26th day of January 1987, he murdered one Felicia Ejide. He was tried at the Ikere-Ekiti Judicial Division of the Ondo State High Court, and on 15th April 1988, Fawehinmi, J. convicted him and sentenced him to death. The appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal Benin Judicial Division (Coram Omo, Musdapher and Ejiwunmi JJ.C.A.) which on 21st February 1989 dismissed his appeal and affirmed the conviction and sentence. The appellant has now appealed to this Court.

The facts of this tragic case have been fully set down in the judgments of the trial Court and the Court of Appeal. I can only set them down briefly here. Felicia Ejide was a woman of about 70 years at the time of her death. For about 8 years prior to her death, she had been very ill and visits to various native doctors or herbalists did not seem to have helped her. She was so sick that she often sobbed. Her illness was in the nature of mental breakdown. Although she lived in a room next to her husband's (D.W.1) room, it was her daughter, Plebeian P. W.2, who looked after her and occasionally brought her food. The other members of her husband's family claimed that she cursed them from time to time. They demanded that she, Felicia, be taken away from the compound. At a meeting at the palace of the Ogogo, it was resolved that Ejide be taken away from the compound and P.W.2 agreed to do so.

On the 26th July, 1987, P.W.2 accompanied by her aunts, P.W.3 and P.W.4, arrived at about 7 p.m. to take her mother away. She tied her mother on her back in the manner in which mothers tie their children in our land. P.W.2 claimed that as they were leaving the compound the appellant followed them jeering and calling her mother a witch. He was joined by other people. A little further, according to her, the appellant pulled at her cloth making her and her mother to fall to the ground. While on the ground, the appellant threw heavy block pieces on her mother causing her severe injuries. Others joined in throwing the blocks. Later on she carried her badly injured mother to her uncle's home and went to lodge a report to the Police that same night. By the time she came back with the Police, her mother had died. The appellant denied the charge and raised a defence of alibi which was supported by several witnesses including P.W.2's father and deceased's husband, D.W.1.

In the appeal in this Court, the appellant filed 8 grounds of appeal.