An Appeal Court sitting in Calabar, Cross River State, has affirmed the decision of a High Court that sentenced a former employee of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Godwin Elewana, to death by hanging for murder.
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Mr. Elewana in suit No. CA/C/278C/2018 had appealed against the ruling of Calabar High Court which sentenced him to death for allegedly shooting to death a 22-year old student, Douglas Ojugbo, said to be the boyfriend of his daughter, in March 2015.
Reading the ruling of the Appeal Court on behalf of three other judges, Justice Y. Nimpar said, “The court, having gone through all the evidences and addresses by the counsel to both parties, finds the judgement of the lower court credible and therefore valid before the law.”
The presiding judge of the High Court in Calabar, Justice Ukpa Ebitam, had said in his ruling that the prosecution team, led by Mr. Eneji Amajama, a Deputy Director in the Department of Public Prosecutions in the state Ministry of Justice, proved its case that the accused committed the crime.
He made reference to the several confessional statements, hospital reports and exhibits presented during the trial as reasons the accused was convicted.
“The prosecution team also proved their second ingredient of the murder which was the intentional act.
“To have fired the victim twice with his pump action gun, I agree that the killing was intentional and I hereby find the accused person guilty of murder.
“Subject to Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Cross River State, any person who commits murder is sentenced to death by hanging,” Ebitam had ruled.
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