EBHOLMIEN AND 4 OTHERS
V.
THE QUEEN
BAIRAMIAN, J.S.C. (delivering the judgement of the Court):-The five appellants were tried with four others on a count of murdering one Yekini Momodu at Ujogba Village in the Benin Division on 18th September, 1961. The other four were acquitted; the five appellants were convicted of the murder by Kester, J. on 8th April, 1963, in the High Court of Western Nigeria.
One Onitiri hired a van at Lagos to take thirteen Yoruba men from Lagos to Benin. At Benin they met one John Omigie (p w. 4), who took the van with ten of the men in it to Ebelle for the night between the 17th and 18th September, 1961, and on the 18th he sent them to Ujogba. John Omigie said that the men were brought from Lagos to act as bodyguard for him and other leaders of the Action Group in Ishan Division because members of the N.C.N.C. were destroying and looting their houses.
Arrived at Ujogba, the men were entertained by Okosun (p.w. 14) at his house; then the men, with two others (p.w. 11 and p.w. 18) and Okosun, ent…