He never saw it happen. One moment, he was fighting off a mob armed with sticks and rods; the next, darkness. When the victim finally regained consciousness, battered and bleeding, badly enough to be shuttled between three hospitals, he made a grim discovery: his Android phone, his Itel phone, and ₦136,000 in cash had vanished, lifted off him while he lay unconscious, with not a single witness to say whose hands did the taking.
The victim’s testimony will only convict the people he saw, the assaulters, and not the people who stole his precious items, since he was unconscious when the theft happened. But the law has an answer for exactly this scenario, and it doesn’t require an eyewitness. It’s called the doctrine of recent possession: if stolen property is found in your possession soon after it went missing, and you can’t give a satisfactory account of how it got there, the law is entitled to presume you’re the thief.
This is precisely the doctrine that would decide the fate of the defendants in this case.
Case Title: RONKE v. STATE (2026) LPELR-83576(CA)
Name of Justices: Muhammed Lawal Shuaibu, JCA
Peter Oyinkenimiemi Affen, JCA
Muslim Sule Hassan, JCA
Issues for Determination
The Court determined the appeal on the sole issue of “whether, having regard to the evidence led at the trial, the Trial Court was not right to have found that the prosecution had proved the offences of conspiracy, assault occasioning harm, attempt to murder, and stealing beyond reasonable doubt against the Appellant to warrant his conviction and sentencing.” Ultimately the Court also decided on “The presumption of the law where a stolen property is found in the possession of a person immediately/soon after a theft.”
A School Dispute Turns Deadly
There were underlying Chieftaincy disputes between the parties, but according to the Appellant, it began with a disagreement between schoolchildren. The victim’s daughter had been involved in a school-related incident with the Appellant’s son, enough of an incident that the police got involved, directing that the Appellant’s son report to the station to answer for it.
What should have ended as a routine matter escalated dramatically. The victim went to the Appellant’s residence, by the Appellant’s account, to enforce the police directive and thereby initiated the confrontation that followed.
The victim’s account was grim: he alleged that the Appellant summoned her son, the 2nd Defendant, who arrived with reinforcements armed with sticks, rods, and other dangerous weapons, and beat him until he lost consciousness. When he eventually regained consciousness, he found himself stripped of more than just his dignity; his Android phone worth ₦45,000, an Itel phone worth ₦4,500, and ₦136,000 in cash were all gone. He was rushed to the hospital, then referred on, not once but twice more, before he was finally discharged. The Appellant insisted that the 2nd Defendant merely came to her aid once the confrontation broke out. That it was a defensive act, not a premeditated attack.
Whatever the true sequence of events, the victim was left badly injured and significantly poorer, and someone would eventually have to answer for it. The Appellant and her co-defendants were charged on four counts: criminal conspiracy, assault occasioning harm, attempted murder, and theft.
At trial, they pleaded not guilty. The prosecution called three witnesses and tendered exhibits, including the Appellant’s own extrajudicial statement. The Appellant testified in her defence but tendered no exhibits of her own. The trial court was unmoved by the defence. It convicted the Appellant and her co-defendants on all four counts, handing down a combined sentence that included 2 years for conspiracy, 2 years for assault occasioning harm, a striking 20 years for attempted murder, and 3 years for stealing.
Dissatisfied, the Appellant appealed. It was the conviction for stealing, in particular, that would put the doctrine of recent possession squarely in the spotlight.
Appellant’s Submissions- “Suspicion Isn’t Proof”
On the count of stealing, counsel for the Appellant argued that the prosecution failed to establish the offence beyond reasonable doubt. It was submitted that the trial Court wrongly convicted the Appellant and her co-defendants on speculation rather than credible evidence. Her strongest card was the victim’s own testimony. By his own account, his phones and cash were already gone by the time he regained consciousness. He never saw who took them. He couldn’t say, with his own eyes, that the Appellant or her co-defendants were the ones who reached into his pockets while he lay unconscious. That gap, the Appellant argued, created real doubt — and doubt, in criminal law, is meant to be resolved in favour of the accused.
Respondent’s Reply- “The Phones Told On Them”
In response, counsel for the Respondent maintained that the conviction for stealing was fully supported by the evidence on record. Counsel pointed out that the victim’s evidence established that his phones, SIM cards, and cash were in his possession before the attack but were missing when he regained consciousness.
But the Respondent’s case did not rest on the victim’s testimony alone. It was the Respondent’s submission that the evidence critically showed that it was not mere suspicion that connected the defendants to the theft. It was the stolen items themselves, recovered from persons who had participated in the very attack that rendered the victim unconscious in the first place. And when those defendants could not satisfactorily explain how they came to possess the victim’s belongings, the conviction was justified under a well-established legal principle: the doctrine of recent possession.
The Decision of the Court of Appeal- “Guilty by What Was Found on You”
The Court of Appeal sided with the Respondent and, in doing so, gave full effect to the doctrine. The Court noted that some of the stolen items, particularly the victim’s SIM cards, were traced to and recovered from the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Defendants, who had been identified as participants in the attack on the victim.
The evidence went further still. The SIM cards stolen from the victim were not simply sitting untouched in a drawer somewhere; they were used for fraudulent activities for over a month after the attack. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the recovery and continued use of the victim’s stolen SIM cards by some of the attackers provided compelling circumstantial evidence linking them to the theft. Their unexplained possession of the stolen items effectively filled the evidential gap created by the victim’s unconsciousness at the time the property was taken. On that basis, the Court held that the doctrine of recent possession applied squarely to the facts before it, and the conviction for stealing stood.
The Court held thus:
“By S. 167(a) of the Evidence Act 2011, the Court may presume that a man who is in possession of stolen goods soon after the theft is either the thief or has received the goods knowing them to be stolen, unless he can account for his possession. See Muftau Aremu v The State [1991] LPELR-545(SC) 1 at 29 – 31 (per Nnaemeka-Agu JSC), Sunday Ehimiyein v The State (2016) LPELR-40841(SC), Freeborn Okiemute v The State (2016) LPELR-40839(SC) and Okunade Kolawole v The State (2015) LPELR-24400(SC) at 23 – 24.”
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