2023

Despite women’s movement over the past several decades into some sectors of the labor force traditionally occupied by men, the overwhelming majority of Nigerian women remain in traditionally female occupations. Most Nigerian women in the village and city markets, as the case may be, engage in buying and selling a limited range of goods and foodstuff. Women have found themselves increasingly in administrative support services such as clerical officers, typists, secretaries and what have you. Others prepare and sell food, or depending on the prevailing agricultural system work on their own farms or assists their husbands in farm work. Such activities always complement the incomes of the families. Sometimes as claims for negligent deaths involving women show – the women can be considered as the major breadwinners of their families. A husband whose income as a laborer was far outstripped by the income of the wife through her trading activity was able to successfully claim that he was a dependent of the late wife and was entitled to a share of the damages that other dependents claimed.

The offence of murder as provided under the Criminal Code is indeed one of the most heinous of the classes of mala inse offences. The punishment for murder which is death by hanging is still one of the few offences attracting such maximum punishment1. The practical implication of the extreme nature of the offence coupled with its punishment is that it places a very high burden of proof on the prosecution, in order to secure a conviction. However, this burden of proof is so high that in most cases little errors in the discharge of this burden may result in the accused persons being acquitted of the offence or of being convicted of the lesser offence of Manslaughter2. The difficult burden of proof has in some cases led to the reluctance of the appropriate authorities to even initiate prosecution for this offence3. The fallout of this is that in some murder cases; the victim may go without a remedy unless the burden of proof is relaxed. One possible medium of relaxation is in the use of dying declarations3a

It has been rightly asserted1 that a little turbulence every once in a while is not only inevitable but good for us as it helps to demonstrate, in case we forget, just what our Federal system of government is all about. More often than not deeply – held convictions on policy issues appear too divergent for ready compromise and political considerations personality clashes may militate against amicable settlement. Resort to a credible and balanced adjudicator to moderate the extravagant claims of the protagonists become a necessary adjunct. In most federal systems of government the courts2 are assigned the constitutional responsibility of pronouncing on the honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual, state or authority against another. Outright government refusal to implement Court orders are rare as this may attract hostile publicity and form the centre of a political storm. Administrative responses in most cases reveal that it pays lip service to inconvenient judicial decisions, which are, seen as a tedious but unavoidable detour into a domain it regards as its own. This paper seeks to examine some of the various techniques Administration employs in circumventing judicial decisions. This will be done against the backdrop of Administrative response to the recent Supreme Court judgment in the case of Attorney General of the Federation v. Attorney-General of Abia State and 35 others.3

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.

Of all the varied attempts to capture the meaning of the term ‘constitution’, it seems that the effort of Prof. O. Hood Phillips is the more far-reaching. According to the learned writer,1 a constitution can be construed in the abstract and in the concrete. For him, a constitution in the abstract is the system of laws, customs and conventions that define the composition and powers of organs of the state and regulate the relations of the various state organs to one another and to the private citizen. A constitution in the concrete sense, on the other hand, is the document in which the most important laws of the country are authoritatively ordained. The position in Britain aptly illustrates Phillips’ notion of an abstract constitution. You will seek in vain if you search for a particular document embodying or which is entitled the ‘British Constitution’. Yet, it is undoubted that the British people have over the past centuries held steadfastly to some documents, statutes, legislations, etc, as fundamental to the British Union.2 It is in this context that one can suppose that a constitution is not merely the whole collection of rules, legal and non-legal, but a selection of them, which have usually been embodied in one document or a few closely related documents. Constitutions have been classified into different types even before the term gained ascendancy in the modern sense.3 In this paper; our concern is with the qualitative classification of a constitution as autochthonous; by which we mean a homegrown constitution.4 We shall examine this constitutional model in the context of Nigeria’s experience in constitutional evolution. We shall trace this evolution with special emphasis on the period 1960 till date. Our aim is to draw attention to the imperative of an autochthonous constitution in Nigeria.

The oil industry has carried on exploitation in the delicate and rich ecosystem of the Niger Delta Wetlands of Nigeria for almost 50 years. What are the impacts of this industry on water? How effective has the law and its enforcement been to minimize the negative impacts of this industry on water? These are the questions that this paper seeks to answer. Our findings show seriously degraded waters following a general lack of enforcement due to shortcomings both in the laws and the regulatory institutions as well as other extra legal. Factors there is an urgent need for comprehensive legislation on water quality management, which will set precise standards, taking into consideration the peculiar circumstances of Nigeria and the Niger Delta environment. Harmonization of functions and strengthening of regulatory institutions together with positive exercise of political will to regulate this industry are however essential for effective enforcement.

In every democratic society where legislative powers are vested in a group of persons, there usually exist certain rules which must be in place for effective and meaningful deliberation and functioning. Certain other established rules of law are sometimes waived so that this goal can be achieved. Specifically, the law on defamation is affected by reason of the fact that legislators cannot effectively carry out their legislative, supervisory and investigative functions without the danger of breaching this aspect of our laws. In Nigeria the various State Houses of Assembly and the National Assembly have been empowered by law to carry out their functions in an atmosphere devoid of harassment and intimidation. The basis and extent of this protection is the subject of our discourse in this paper. In doing this we have looked at the relevant laws as well as the position in some other jurisdictions. The necessity for this article is borne out of the fact that in recent times some legislators seem to have formed an exaggerated impression of their position based on the provisions of the relevant statutes. Our aim is to reveal the correct position as revealed in the constitution and the relevant cases. Finally we shall proffer suggestions for reforms.

The term medical negligence1 has acquired a connotation in legal parlance that is at once evocative of both civil and criminal liability and at the same time mutually exclusive in meaning.2 This paper however concentrates on the criminal liability of medical practitioners for negligent conducts in the course of their medical practice.

 Generally, liability for negligence in the criminal law raises some fundamental questions going to the root of the legal basis of criminal responsibility.3 While negligence is recognized as a basis for criminal liability in Nigeria, neither in the Criminal Code4 nor in the Penal Code5 is a definition of criminal negligence provided. It has been suggested that the definitive content of criminal negligence is only discoverable from books, statutes and judicial dicta.6 It is submitted however, that the absence of the definition of criminal negligence does not a priori exclude from the codes clear and unambiguous provisions dealing with categories of conducts that may constitute criminal negligence.

Improving the social and legal status of HIV-affected populations including their human rights are necessary undertakings in combating the HIV/AIDS scourge in Nigeria. Vulnerability to the disease depends to a large extent on the legal, social and economic conditions in each country. The need for the protection of human rights in HIV- related care, prevention and treatment programs is vital because of the stigma and discrimination surrounding the disease. Protection is needed in many areas of human rights law, especially of groups most commonly affected by the pandemic such as women, children and young people. Integrating human rights protection in Government policies on HIV/AIDS and sensitizing AIDS service organizations are thus essential activities to be embarked UPON in containing the spread of the disease. This paper suggests a human rights based response to HIV/AIDS. It provides a legal and ethical framework for government policies and prevention/care programmes in Nigeria, that would enable the society and individuals respond effectively to the disease.

The international trafficking in human beings – particularly of women and children for purposes of slavery, forced labor or prostitution is a growing global problem. It represents the world’s third largest area of organized crime – after drugs and arms trade – and a business that produces an estimated seven billion dollars annually. Again, the physical and sexual abuse of children as well as the trafficking of children for exploitative purposes amount to the worst violations of human rights in recent times. Research has shown that an estimated 35% of victims trafficked annually are under the age of 18. Various studies have also shown that children are regularly kidnapped, tricked, persuaded or coerced into leaving home and often cross international borders with the promise of bogus jobs that could benefit families back home; some are sold into outright slavery. African children are routinely trafficked from one country to another within the continent and to European countries and forced to work as child prostitutes, in farms, plantations, quarries, mines, and domestic servitude. This paper critically examines the near absence of clear policy plans and comprehensive legal frameworks to combat the menace in the continent, particularly in West and Central Africa, and makes proposals for urgent steps in these directions as the foundation of all efforts to combat the scourge.