Idowu: The Nigerian Supreme Court Erred!

In the shocking case of Idowu, the appellant raped his four-year-old niece Shade Pelemo. She died the next day from the injuries sustained from the rape. The trial court found the appellant guilty of murder, and this verdict was upheld on appeal to the Court of Appeal. On final appeal to the Supreme Court of Nigeria, however, the verdict was upturned and one of manslaughter substituted. The ratio decidendi of the Nigerian Supreme Court was that, in the absence of evidence that rape of a four-year-old girl was likely to endanger her life, the appellant could not be convicted of murder by virtue of section 316(3) of the Criminal Code of Nigeria. The following factors marred the legal logic of Idowu and rendered the Supreme Court decision unsupportable: 1. The appellant was charged and convicted under the wrong statutory provision: section 316(3) of the Nigerian Criminal Code. 2. The appellant should have been charged under section 316(2). Had the appellant been charged under this clause, he would have been rightly convicted. The appellant should have been convicted under this provision anyway, even where charged under another clause. 3. The precedents relied on by the Supreme Court are not on all fours with, and indeed are distinguishable from, Idowu’s case. Grievous harm, at least, if not death, is certainly a natural and probable consequence of the rape of a four-year-old girl. The appellant in Idowu ought to have been held to have intended this result of his rape of tiny, tender Shade. In such scenarios, Nigerian criminal law fastens such an intention on the defendant. In Idowu, the appellant should be presumed to have intended to cause grievous harm to four-year-old Shade. Grievous harm, at least, is a natural and probable consequence of the rape by a grown man of a four-year-old child. The Supreme Court of Nigeria should have upheld the appellant’s murder conviction by virtue of section 316(2) of the Nigerian Criminal Code.