T. O. ELIAS, C.J.N. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This is an appeal against the conviction of the appellant for the murder of her newly born baby by Adewuyi, J., at the High Court Makurdi, contrary to section 221 of the Penal Code.
The prosecution case was that the accused was at the material time living with some other tenants in a house at Wadata, Makurdi. On October 27, 1973, some women tenants, who were sitting outside the house, heard the cry of a child and one of them went inside to check if it was her sleeping child but found that this was not the case. The women then went to knock on the door of the bathroom from which the child's cry was coming, but the door was not opened to them by the person inside. They, however, continued to hear the crying child being knocked against a"pan and being beaten until the crying stopped. Later, the accused emerged from the bathroom with a pan bowl in her hand which she took into her room.
One James Okpe, a Military Policeman, had the inc…