.

At the conclusion of a criminal trial, the outcome of the proceedings is that the defendant is either acquitted or convicted. Where he is acquitted he will immediately leave the dock and go home without more. But where he is convicted he will be sentenced according to law. However, between conviction and sentence there exists a procedure known as a plea of allocutus by which the defendant (who has now become a convict) pleads with the Judge or the presiding officer to temper justice with mercy by reducing his sentence. This article examines whether a defense counsel can plead allocutus on behalf of his convicted client considering the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the above case wherein the apex court in an unprecedented legal twist prohibited legal practitioners from pleading allocutus on behalf of their clients.

Legitimate expectation’ as a concept in public law is relatively new in the history of legal development. Little wonder, therefore, that counsel to parties in litigation hardly resort to it to anchor a cause of action or argue their clients’ cases. Society is dynamic. So also, are socio-legal needs and legal solutions to legal problems. It is relevant in resolving disputes in many jural relationships such as one between school authority and students; employer and employee; bachelor and spinster; government and the governed. It is against this background that the concept is explained not only from its ordinary meaning, but also from the more important technical perspectives of its juristic and scholastic connotations. The concept of legitimate expectation is an appropriate review mechanism that can be administratively and judicially applied to protect the legitimate expectations of persons.

This paper continues the debate on the constitutional immunity reserved for a few elected office holders in Nigeria by questioning its rationality. The immunity clause provision, as contained in the nation's constitution, is a safeguard or shield for the beneficiaries to legal impediments or inhibitions in the discharge of their constitutional duties or functions, and to promote good governance so as to ensure accelerated development in the society. The legal framework put in place to check corruption in public office was examined against the massive corruption by some public officers to whom the constitutional immunity applies. This paper argues that the immunity shields corrupt public officers and by extension emboldens corruption in public office. Finally, this paper proffers possible ways the ills so far associated with the clause can be corrected by way of recommendations.

One of the purposes of the United Nations as proclaimed by the UN Charter is to promote and encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.1 Soon after the introduction of human rights into international discourse through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the ideological divide between the West and the East found its way into negotiations for a framework towards recognition and protection.2 This divide resulted in the creation of a dichotomy of human rights along the existing Cold War groupings with the traditional West placing emphasis on civil and political rights and the East showing a preference for economic, social and cultural rights. With the emergence of the global South, a third category of human rights now known as collective or group rights entered into the picture.3

The world has witnessed series of international armed conflicts and non-international armed conflicts which has resulted in the commission of international crimes against humanity by both state actors and non-state actors in the waging of such wars. Most heinous crimes have been committed by such actors dating back to First World War (WWI), Second World War (WWII) and other conflicts like the Yugoslavia and Rwanda to mention a few. Efforts have been made by world leaders to address the occurrence of such crimes by setting up ad-hoc tribunals at various times to bring perpetrators of such international crimes to justice. In order to permanently address this scourge, world leaders in 1998 adopted the Rome Statute leading to the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over such crimes instituted by the Statute in order to bring individual perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice. The Court exercising its jurisdiction has been confronted with challenges that is capable of impeding its relevance to combat international crimes such as its jurisdiction, issue of bias against the Court by some state parties leading to the withdrawal of such state parties from the Statute, refusal of super world powers like the United Nations Security Council permanent members to accede to and ratify the Statute. This paper attempts to examine the significance and challenges confronting the ICC from performing maximally and it shall recommend ones that will make the ICC to be of relevance to the overall development of the society in order to have a society where the rights of humankind are not trampled upon with impunity such as enforcing national justice systems to fully participate in the investigation and prosecution of cases while ICC mainly focus on technical assistance and provisions of additional mechanisms to States to enhance complementarity and cooperation.

Economic and financial crimes (EFCs) are global problems which affects the economy of countries and the society at large. This situation is exacerbated in countries such as Nigeria with low Corruption Perception Index which has failed to tackle corruption effectively; especially in the public sector. Regardless, combating EFCs in Nigeria has led to the establishment of several Anti-Corruption Agencies (ACAs) and Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). To facilitate the successes of the ACAs and LEAs in the fight against EFCs through financial intelligence a financial intelligence unit (FIU) was established, as recommended globally, to provide the requisite financial intelligence to the relevant ACAs and LEAs. The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has been further empowered with the fairly recent enactment of the NFIU Act 2018. In order to aptly assess the relevance of this development in the fight against EFCs in Nigeria, this paper, using content analyses approach, reviews the role and relevance of the NFIU in combating EFCs in Nigeria under the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act (EFCC Act) and under the extant NFIU Act with the antedant challenges faced by this Unit.

Corona virus disease (Covid-19) is caused by a new strain of corona virus (SARS-Cov-2) that causes respiratory illness in humans. It was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on the 31st of December 2019 to have occurred in Wuhan China.1 The disease defied scientific projections as the trajectory of the virus revealed an unfamiliar pattern difficult to predict and manage. At the emergence of the Covid-19 viral pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO)2 and the World Bank3 had a grim prognosis that Covid-19 would disproportionately affect countries of the world especially poor and vulnerable countries of Sub-Saharan Africa which were projected to bear the brunt of the impact.4 And by 2021, the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta mutations of the virus generated concerns bordering on the management of the rapidly mutating virus.

The removal from office of the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Honorable Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen apparently generated a lot of controversies in recent times. One of the major issues that is being debated on is whether the chairman and members of the Code of Conduct Tribunal are under the disciplinary authority of the National Judicial Council? The chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Justice Danladi Umar has in a statement said that members of the Code of Conduct Tribunal are not judicial officers and therefore not constitutionally subject to any disciplinary proceedings by either the National Judicial Council or the Federal Judicial Service Commission but the Presidency1. The constitutionality or otherwise of this argument and assertion is the focus and aim of this article. The article examines the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended with regard to the status of the chairman and members of the Tribunal vis-a-vis the disciplinary authority of the National Judicial Council. It is found that the chairman and members of the Code of Conduct Tribunal are not under the disciplinary authority of the National Judicial Council. The article concludes by recommending the subjection of the members of the Tribunal to the disciplinary authority of the National Judicial Council. In writing this article doctrinal research method was used to collate materials.

Like most governments all over the world, the Nigerian Government has found it expedient to entrust certain task to administrative bodies as distinct from the civil service. Of these administrative bodies are regulatory agencies who are independent bodies and are vested with powers to oversee and regulate activities in various sectors of the economy. To strike a balance between the independence of these regulatory agencies and ensure that they do not become arbitrary in carrying out their mandate, Nigerian law provides for democratic control of these regulatory agencies by putting them under the supervision of designated ministers. Using a doctrinal method, this paper examines the powers and functions of regulatory agencies and the democratic control mechanism of supervising ministers and finds that these democratic control mechanisms have been applied by the ministers in a manner that seems more like interference rather than checking the excesses of regulatory agencies. The paper concludes by demonstrating that these interferences have watered down the independence and effectiveness of regulatory agencies and have caused the substitution of the discretion of the governing board and management team in matters within their jurisdiction for the directives of the ministers. The paper recommends that, directives of ministers to regulatory agencies should always be in writing and be made public and regulatory agencies should have the discretion to refuse specific directives that amount to interference or, in the alternative, refer such directives to a neutral third party for determination of its arbitrariness or otherwise.

The Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 9th December 2019 reportedly called on the Nigerian executive arm of government to declare a state of emergency in the nation’s power sector. The third figure in Nigeria’s helm of power described the power sector privatization as a fraud and called for a review of the scheme. Although the National Assembly is yet to take a courageous stand, the current opinion of the Senate President suggests that the Nigerian government is seriously faced with the challenge of taking a major decision of revisiting the power sector privatization scheme. This is more so because the power sector is currently in shambles and the private investors managing the sector seem to be overwhelmed by the onerous task which they signed to perform since 2013. This research work carefully juxtaposes the arguments for and against the option of ‘deprivatizing’ the power sector and finds that deprivatization may not provide a lasting solution. The researcher, however, recommends that more efforts should be channeled towards investing in the nation’s rich renewable energy resources as the surest way of solving the quagmire presently trailing the nation’s power sector.