26 April

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Corporate Personality in Nigerian Law: The Salomon Principle and the Veil of Incorporation

in 300 Level, Case Analysis, Class Notes, Company Law, Educational Articles

Every year in Nigeria, thousands of companies are incorporated through the Corporate Affairs Commission. The promoters sign the memorandum of association, pay the prescribed fees, and receive their certificate of incorporation. What many of them do not immediately grasp is that something remarkable has happened at the moment that certificate is issued: a new legal person has come into existence. Not a human person, but a person nonetheless, one capable of owning property, entering contracts, suing and being sued, and outliving every human being who created it. This is the doctrine of corporate personality, and it is the single most foundational...

26 April

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History of Company Law in Nigeria: From Trade by Barter to CAMA 2020

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 300 Level, Case Analysis, Class Notes, Company Law, Educational Articles, Exam Preparation, Study Resources, Study Tips

Before the word "company" meant anything to the people of the territory now called Nigeria, commerce was already alive. Markets thrived. Goods changed hands. Farmers, hunters, and craftsmen exchanged what they had for what they needed. There were no registration numbers, no memoranda of association, no Corporate Affairs Commission. Trade simply happened, governed by trust, custom, and community. That world was transformed, gradually and then decisively, by the arrival of foreign traders, colonial administration, and the legislative machinery they brought with them. The history of company law in Nigeria is not merely an account of statutes and ordinances. It is the...

20 April

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The Tort of Deceit in Nigerian Law: Fraudulent Misrepresentation and Liability

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 200 Level, Class Notes, Law of Torts

Fraud, as Nigerians understand it practically, has many faces. There is the "yahoo boy" who defrauds a foreign national through advance fee schemes. There is the land vendor in Lekki who sells the same plot of land to three different buyers. There is the developer in Osapa London who collects completion payments from fifty subscribers while knowing, from day one, that he has no building permit. And there is the more intimate kind of fraud: the man who promises marriage to a woman, receives her financial support and possibly much more, and then vanishes or reveals that he was already...

20 April

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The Tort of Conspiracy in Nigerian Law: Elements, Defences, and Remedies

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 200 Level, Class Notes, Law of Torts

You are a successful frozen fish trader in Mushin Market. Three of your competitors, who together control the supply chain in your area, decide privately that your growing market share threatens them. They agree, informally but deliberately, to collectively refuse you supply. They have not lied to you. They have not threatened you. Each of them, individually, has done nothing unlawful. But together, their combination brings your business to its knees. This is the scenario that sits at the heart of the tort of conspiracy, and it raises one of the more intellectually interesting questions in Nigerian tort law: when does...

20 April

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Trespass to Chattel, Conversion, and Detinue in Nigerian Law: A Complete Guide

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 200 Level, Class Notes, Law of Torts

If you have studied trespass to land, the structure of trespass to chattel will feel immediately familiar. The same architecture applies: a direct, intentional or negligent interference with something that belongs to another person, actionable without proof of damage, protecting possession rather than ownership. The difference is only in what is being protected. Trespass to land guards your right to exclusive enjoyment of a piece of ground. Trespass to chattel guards your right to exclusive enjoyment of your moveable property. One protects what you stand on; the other protects what you carry, drive, use, and own. But where trespass to land...

20 April

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Malicious Prosecution in Nigerian Law: When False Accusations Become a Tort

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 200 Level, Class Notes, Law of Torts

Every law student who has studied procedure knows that the law is not merely a sword the plaintiff wields against the defendant. It is also a shield. But what happens when someone picks up that shield and uses it as a weapon? When the criminal justice process, built to protect society from wrongdoers, is deployed not in the service of justice but in the service of revenge, envy, or commercial rivalry? Nigeria has a problem that practitioners know intimately but that textbooks rarely confront with sufficient directness. The police system is routinely weaponised. A debtor reports his creditor to the police...

20 April

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Defamation in Nigerian Law: Libel, Slander, Social Media, and Your Legal Rights

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 200 Level, Case Analysis, Class Notes, Law of Torts

There is a thought experiment that tort law students encounter sooner or later. Imagine two people, both targeted by another. The first is threatened with a fist to the face. The second is told, loudly and in public, that he is a thief. Neither is physically harmed. Yet both have actionable claims. The first has an action in assault, because the law protects bodily integrity from the apprehension of force. The second has an action in defamation, because the law equally protects reputation from the apprehension of others. The parallel is not coincidental. Both torts guard something fundamental about a...

19 April

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Death as a Cause of Action in Law: What Families of Accident Victims Can Claim

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 200 Level, Case Analysis, Class Notes, Educational Articles, Exam Preparation, Law of Torts, Study Resources, Torts & Contracts

In June 2012, Dana Airlines Flight 992 crashed into a densely populated residential area at Iju-Ishaga, Lagos, killing all 153 persons on board and 10 people on the ground. Among the dead were fathers, mothers, breadwinners, and children. Their families were left not only with grief but with the immediate, crushing financial reality of lost income and lost support. The law's response to this tragedy illustrates one of the most important and underappreciated areas of Nigerian tort law: death as a cause of action. The question is not just whether someone is criminally responsible for the deaths. The question that tort...

19 April

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The Tort of Nuisance in Nigerian Law: Generator Noise, Oil Spills, and Your Legal Rights

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 200 Level, Case Analysis, Class Notes, Educational Articles, Exam Preparation, Law of Torts, Study Resources

Picture this. You have just moved into a quiet residential estate in Lekki. Three weeks later, your neighbour sets up a commercial generator that runs from 6am to 11pm, six days a week. The fumes drift through your windows. Your children cannot sleep. Your concentration at work is shattered. You complain, informally. Nothing changes. Or consider a different scenario. An oil company has been operating a pipeline through your community in Bayelsa for two decades. Over time, there have been spills. The farmland your family depends on is contaminated. Fish have disappeared from the creeks. The water is no longer safe....

19 April

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Defences to Negligence in Tort Law: Volenti, Contributory Negligence and More

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in 200 Level, Case Analysis, Class Notes, Educational Articles, Exam Preparation, Law of Torts, Study Resources

Imagine you are knocked down by a danfo bus on Ikorodu Road, Lagos. You have a broken leg, medical bills, and two weeks of lost income. You instruct a lawyer, who confirms that the bus driver was clearly negligent. You file your claim, confident in the outcome. Then the defendant's lawyer stands up and says: "Yes, our client was negligent. But the plaintiff was crossing at the wrong point on the road, wearing dark clothing at night, without looking left or right." Suddenly, your apparently straightforward case has a complication. This is what defences to negligence do. They either completely defeat a...