28 May

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Confessions Under the Evidence Act 2011: Voluntariness, Oppression and Retraction

On any given day in a Nigerian police station, a suspect is brought in for questioning. Sometimes, the questioning is done properly. Often, it is not. What happens next, the statement that emerges from that interrogation, may become the most important piece of evidence in a criminal trial. Whether that statement is admitted into evidence can determine whether a person goes free or goes to prison. Confessions are extraordinary evidence. They are admissions by the accused person themselves that they committed the crime. When believed and properly obtained, they are among the strongest evidence a prosecution can have. The Supreme Court...

28 May

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Admissions in Evidence Law: Formal, Informal and by Conduct

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

A defendant files a statement of defence in a land dispute. In paragraph four, he admits that the plaintiff has been farming on the disputed land since 1998 but says this was done with his permission. That admission, buried in a pleading, can be powerful. The plaintiff no longer needs to prove years of possession. The defendant has conceded it. The dispute narrows to whether the plaintiff's occupation was permissive or adverse. This is an admission at work. It is one of the most significant concepts in Nigerian evidence law because it directly reduces what the opposing party must prove, and...

28 May

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Hearsay Evidence in Nigeria: The Rule, the Reasons, and the Exceptions

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

A police officer walks into court and says: "The witness told me that she saw the accused stab the deceased." The accused's counsel is on their feet immediately: objection. The officer did not see anything. He is simply repeating what someone else told him. If the court accepts his evidence to prove that the stabbing happened, it is convicting on the basis of a statement that was never tested under cross-examination, made by a person who is not before the court, on oath. That is the problem with hearsay evidence. And it is why, across centuries of common law and now...

28 May

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Similar Facts Evidence: When the Past is Relevant

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

If a man is charged with raping a woman in a hotel room, can the prosecution bring evidence that he committed the same act against three other women in hotel rooms in a similar manner over the past two years? The gut reaction of many students is: of course. That evidence makes him look like a serial offender. Why would the court not hear it? The gut reaction is wrong. Evidence of past misconduct is one of the most carefully controlled areas in Nigerian evidence law. Bringing in evidence of what a person did before, simply to show they are the...

28 May

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Res Gestae and Section 4 of the Evidence Act 2011: What Happened to the Common Law Doctrine?

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

There is a phrase that appears regularly in old Nigerian evidence law reports: "part of the res gestae." Counsel would use it to get otherwise inadmissible evidence before the court, arguing that certain words spoken during or immediately after an event were so connected to that event that they formed part of it. Judges would accept or reject the argument depending on how spontaneous the statement appeared. That phrase, and the common law doctrine behind it, caused more confusion than almost any other concept in evidence law. It was never clearly defined, its boundaries were contested, and courts applied it inconsistently....

26 May

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Direct Evidence in Nigerian Law: Eyewitness Testimony and Section 126

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

On 14 October 2018, a woman named Chioma was returning from the market in Nnewi when she saw two men drag her neighbour into an alley. She heard a scream and saw one of the men strike the victim with a machete. She ran and told her husband what she saw. Later that day, the victim died. At trial, Chioma took the witness stand and testified to everything she saw and heard. Her husband also testified. He said Chioma came home agitated and told him what happened. Both testimonies are oral evidence. But only one of them is direct evidence. Chioma's...

26 May

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Burden and Standard of Proof in Nigeria: Who Must Prove What, and How Much?

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

Walk into any criminal court in Nigeria on any working day and you will hear the phrase "beyond reasonable doubt" used at least once. Walk into a civil court and you will hear "balance of probabilities." Both phrases answer a single question: how much proof does a party need before a court will rule in their favour? That question, and the related question of who has to do the proving, is what the law on burden and standard of proof is all about. These concepts are not just examination topics. In the real world, getting them wrong costs people their cases...

26 May

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Relevancy, Admissibility and Weight of Evidence Under the Evidence Act 2011

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

There is a scene that plays out in Nigerian courts more often than most students realise. A counsel tenders a document. The opposing counsel objects. The judge says: "Counsel, is your objection to relevance or to admissibility?" The counsel who cannot tell the difference has already lost the argument, because these are not the same question, they carry different consequences, and the court will treat them entirely differently. These three concepts, relevancy, admissibility, and weight, are the structural backbone of the Nigerian law of evidence. Every other rule in the Evidence Act 2011 is, in some sense, an elaboration of how...

26 May

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Facts in Issue and Relevant Facts: The Gateway to Evidence in Nigerian Courts

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

Picture a land dispute in the Ibadan High Court. The plaintiff says the defendant trespassed on his farmland. The defendant says the land belongs to him and he was simply exercising his right. The plaintiff's counsel calls a witness who wants to testify that the defendant has a bad temper and once quarrelled with a neighbour. The defence objects. The judge sustains the objection. Why? Because the defendant's temper is not a fact in issue and is not relevant to any fact in issue in that case. It does not make the question of who owns the land any more or...

26 May

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Sources of Nigerian Law of Evidence: From the 1943 Ordinance to the Evidence Act 2011

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

In 1952, a man stood trial in a Nigerian High Court and his counsel tried to argue that certain evidence should be admitted based on an English common law rule that existed before the Evidence Ordinance came into force. The court had to decide: does that old English rule still operate in Nigeria, or has it been replaced by the statute? The answer depended entirely on understanding where Nigerian evidence law comes from and how the different sources rank against each other. That question has not gone away. In fact, it became more complicated when the Evidence Act 2011 replaced the...

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