T. O. ELIAS, C.J.N (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This is an appeal from the judgment of S.J. Ete, J., delivered in the High Court of the South-Eastern State in the Uyo Judicial Division on February 18, 1972, in which he convicted the accused of the murder of one Mfon Ufot Udo Ikpah, contrary to Section 319 of the Criminal Code of the former Eastern Nigeria. When we heard this appeal on October 19, 1972, we dismissed it as without merit, and now give our reasons for doing so.
The case for the prosecution was that, on January 29, 1970, the deceased left her husband's house and went to a nearby stream for the purpose of immersing in it some cassava roots in order to ferment them. The husband, Ufot Udo Ikpah (P.W. 2) was clearing some bush for farming at about 11 a.m., that day when he heard people talking and rushing away, and, on asking one of them, he was told that the accused had killed someone. He went home to find his wife's room locked and went in the direction of the stream i…