Ex-NNPC employee to die for killing daughter’s lover, Appeal Court affirms

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.

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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