It has become necessary to again examine the scope of the defence of accident under the Nigerian criminal law in the light of the recent decisions of our appellate courts on the circumstances when the defence will be available. The defence assumes that the actus reus of the offence is present without a guilty state of mind. In other words, having regard to the facts which he admits, the accused person should be discharged and acquitted of the offence charged because his conduct in the commission of the offence was an accident or that the consequences that flowed from such conduct was not contemplated by the accused person. Where the defence is upheld, the proper order of the court will be an acquittal. This is in line with the criminal law principle of no liability without fault expressed in the latin maxim of actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea. That is, there must be a concurrence of the actus reus and the mens rea before a crime can be constituted. The two Nigerian codes create the defence as one that negatives the intent to commit any offence. However, the crux of the matter is to determine the circumstances when the defence will actually avail an accused person. Recent decisions of our superior courts have made it difficult to evolve clearly settled principles on the situations when the defence will be available in cases of unlawful homicide. It is proposed in this paper, to examine the contradictions in the positions of our superior courts first, in their interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Codes and second, in the findings of the Courts as to what may constitute the defence in the light of the earlier cases on the point.