BRETT, JSC (Delivering the judgment of the Court):
The three appellants were convicted of murdering a man named Noah Agemo, and it is not in dispute that he met his death in the presence of all three of them and of no other eye-witness. On the evidence, if the trial court was satisfied that the appellants, or any of them, killed him, the killing cannot have amounted to any lesser offence than murder, and the questions which have to be decided, in relation to each of the three appellants, are, whether the deceased was murdered, and, if so, whether the appellant was criminally responsible for the murder.
The salient facts were that in the evening of the 9th of May, 1962, Noah Agemo, who was a dealer in cloth, was travelling from Badagry to Tongeji with a quantity of cloth in a canoe paddled by Sijiko Kiki when they met another canoe with the three appellants inconsequence of what passed between them, the cloth belonging to Noah Agemo was transferred to the canoe drawn by the three appella…