Substantiating the foregoing piece of evidence, PW2
also testified as follows:“After he left, I heard him shouting before he
reached the place calling my name “Jafar!
Jafar!! Come”. I then rushed to where he was
and found him in pool of blood and I asked
him who did this to you? and he said “it was
Bilal and other 3 persons.”
It was also part of their evidence that the deceased
died 2 days after he was admitted at Usman
Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital Sokoto.
Defence counsel at paragraphs 4.26 – 4.28 of their
adopted written address submitted that although
dying declaration is an admissible evidence as one of
the exception to the inadmissibility of hearsay
evidence where cause of death of a deceased is in
issue, she contended that the evidence of the 2
prosecution witnesses on the dying declaration of the
deceased is inconsistent because while PW1 says the
deceased said it was the defendant, PW2 says it was
the defendant and 3 others.
From the foregoing, one will be tempted to ask what
then is a dying declaration?
The Supreme Court in the case of Ezekwe V. State
(2018) 14 NWLR pt 1639 p 209 at 226 described
dying declaration as follows:“It is a declaration of someone at the point of
death, whose hope of life is gone when the
motive for falsehood is no longer there and the
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