The appellant, a middle aged man of 40 years and a native of Igbo Ekureku village in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State was in the High Court of Cross River State sitting at Ikom (Effanga, J.) tried and convicted of the murder of Edu Efe Ntomo (f) an old woman of 60 years and sentenced to death on the 9th day of June, 1977.

This is an appeal against the judgment of Court of Appeal, Enugu delivered on the 18th of July 2001 in which it dismissed the appeals of the Appellants and affirmed the judgment of Anambra High Court which convicted the Appellants of the murder of one Maduneke Enweonye (hereinafter called "the deceased").

The fact of this case as put forward by the prosecution was that there was a dispute among the members of Umuereagu Osiokwe Amaku Community as to the ownership of one Ikpi Fish¬pond. The dispute was resolved and the fish-pond was leased to one Chief Philip Ezeobu for five years. The first accused in the trial Court was employed as a guard to watch over the pond. After a while he was removed and replaced with the deceased. The first accused in the trial Court was not happy and threatened in the presence of many people in a community meeting that he would kill the deceased. The deceased subsequently disappeared and was never found. Godfrey Emengini (hereinafter called "PW5") was the only eye witness of the killing of the deceased by the Appellants. He gave a graphic account of how the deceased was killed and the Appellants arranged to dump the body in River Anambra.

The Appellants denied the charge against them. The trial Court relied mainly on the evidence of PW5 to convict the Appellants. Their appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed. This is a further appeal to the Supreme Court.

The appeal was summarily dismissed at the hearing following the submission by counsel for the appellant that he had nothing useful to urge in favour of the ap-pellant. The appellant still aggrieved, has now appealed to this Court against the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal.