Court sentences 39-year-old to life imprisonment for killing his father in Akwa Ibom

A judge in the Akwa Ibom State High Court in Uyo, the state capital, has sentenced one Effiong Philip, a 39-year-old bricklayer from Mbiakpan Atan in the Ibiono Ibom Local Government Council, to life in jail for murdering his 68-year-old father.

According to the presiding judge, Justice Bassey Nkanang, the offender beat his father to death over the accusation that he was a wizard and was to blame for his wife’s inability to conceive.

In a charge of murder filed by the State against Monday Effiong Philip, the prosecution stated that the defendant “delivered fist blows to his father and pushed him, whereupon he is reported to have fallen down” on May 27, 2017, in response to his wife’s complaint against her father-in-law.

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Even when a neighbor moved the victim into his room, the convict shut the door to his father’s room and returned the next day with a patent medicine salesman, only to find his father dead in the room, according to the prosecution.

In an hour-long ruling, Justice Nkanang held that the convict’s invitation of the patent medicine merchant showed that, despite the unreasonable and unlawful assault on his father, he had no intention of killing him and had no knowledge that death would be a likely result of his actions.

“Whereas the accused person’s deed resulted in the deceased’s death, the six circumstances set out in section 3, 2, 3 of the Criminal Code, Laws of Akwa Ibom State, which define what constitutes murder, appear to be absent in the full scenario of the case,” the court said.

“The Court’s position, on the extent to which evidence at trial has established the three ingredients of murder, is that the deceased is dead and the accused person’s act is responsible for the death, but there is insufficient evidence to prove the third mandatory ingredient in a charge of murder,” Justice Nkanang added.

The Court stated, “The position of the law is that the particulars of the smaller offense must be capable of being subsumed in the original accusation, such that the lower offense may be cut out from the particulars of the original charge, which was murder.”

“It is this statute that equips the trial court with the power to convict for a lower violation, when the ingredients of the said lesser offense are contained in the aggravated charge and found proved,” Justice Nkanang explained.

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The court ruled in favor of the prosecution and found Monday Effiong Akpan guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to life in prison.

The offender, who is a father of one, begged with the Court for leniency, claiming that he is his father’s only child.