The appellant decapitated his six-months old son and also successively killed his mother and brother-in-law for no just cause. In the statement made to the police immediately after the commission of the offence, he was said to have come in one night, cooked and eaten the rice bought from the market by his wife, and then slept. Waking up a little later, he started picking up trouble with the wife; and shortly after, he said he would kill his son and he did so in spite of the wife's protest. He then knocked out the wife un¬conscious and killed the two others later.

At the trial, his testimony was at variance with his extra- judicial statement to the police. He did not deny the killing. In fact he thought he killed the wife too. But he denied knowing that what he did was wrong. He attributed his action to having smoked a wrap of Indian hemp which a friend bought from an old lady and gave him to smoke. He did not call those two persons to corroborate his evidence. But a psychiatrist who saw him on 9th August, 1984, about seventeen months later in the prison, testified and opened that the appellant could have been suffering from a disease of the mind called schizophrenia; and that being of unsound mind he could not stand his trial at that time. The appellant was later treated and thereafter he was declared fit to plead and to stand his trial. The psychiatrist did not however see or examine him at the time of the commission of the offences; but he based his opinion on the hearsay facts obtained from the appellant's relatives about the appellant's background.

The learned trial Judge meticulously considered the evidence of the prosecu¬tion witnesses and the defence of the appellant. He carefully considered the defence of insanity, insane delusion and intoxication in relation to the provisions of section 28 and 29 of the Criminal Code of Bendel State. And after examining the principles laid down in a long line of cases by this Court on issues of insanity and allied defences particularly in Ngene Arum vs. The State (1979) 11 S.C. 91 and Egbe Nkanu vs. The State (1980) 3 & 4 S.C. 1, he came to the conclusion that the defences of insanity, insane delusion and self-induced intoxication did not avail the appellant.

Appellant's appeal to the Court of Appeal was unsuccessful and he further appealed to the Supreme Court.