26 June

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Copyright Ownership in Nigeria: Authors, Joint Authors, Employers and Commissioners

A wedding videographer in Abuja films a couple's traditional engagement ceremony and later discovers the couple has reposted clips of his footage, with his watermark removed, on a paid promotional reel for their own business. A session vocalist records the hook on what becomes a chart-topping Afrobeats single, while the actual composer wrote every note and lyric in advance. A graphic designer employed full-time by a Lagos advertising agency creates a campaign logo during work hours, then later freelances the exact same design to a rival client. In every one of these situations, the underlying creative work is plainly eligible...

21 June

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What is Intellectual Property Law in Nigeria?

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, IP Law

Every time a Nollywood producer releases a film, an Afrobeats musician records a song, or a manufacturer in Aba puts a label on a shoe, intellectual property law is working in the background. It decides who owns the idea, who can profit from it, and who can be stopped when someone else tries to take it. For Nigerian law students, understanding what intellectual property law is and how it operates in Nigeria is not just an academic exercise. The industries that intellectual property law governs, from music and film to pharmaceuticals and consumer goods, sit at the heart of the...

21 June

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Conditions for Copyright Protection in Nigeria: Originality, Fixation and Qualifying Factors

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, IP Law, Legal News

A Nigerian software company discovers that a competitor has installed unlicensed copies of Microsoft Windows across its entire office network. Microsoft Corporation, a company incorporated in the United States, wants to sue for infringement in a Nigerian court. Does it have any right to do so? This is not a hypothetical concern. It is, almost word for word, the question that reached the Nigerian Court of Appeal in 2011, and the answer the court gave has shaped how foreign copyright owners approach Nigerian litigation ever since. Works Eligible for Copyright in Nigeria Under the Copyright Act 2022 established what kind of...

21 June

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Works Eligible for Copyright in Nigeria Under the Copyright Act 2022

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, IP Law

A university student in Ibadan films a comedy skit on her phone, writes the jingle that plays over it herself, and posts it online. A software developer in Yaba builds a budgeting app and writes every line of its code from scratch. An Afrobeats producer lays a new beat under a sample of a forgotten highlife record from the 1970s. All three have created something. The question this article answers is which of these creations actually qualifies for copyright protection under Nigerian law, and what conditions each one must satisfy before the law will recognise it as a protected work...

21 June

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International Copyright Conventions and Nigeria: Berne, Rome, UCC and TRIPS

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, IP Law

When a Nollywood film streams in London, when an Afrobeats producer samples a Jamaican dancehall riddim, or when a UK record label licenses a Burna Boy track for an advertisement, a quiet question sits underneath the transaction: whose copyright law applies, and does Nigerian protection mean anything outside Nigeria's borders? The answer lies in a small group of international treaties that Nigeria has joined over the past three decades. Understanding what these treaties require, and just as importantly, what Nigeria has and has not actually brought into its domestic law, is essential before any other topic in copyright law can...

01 June

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Nigerian Law of Evidence: A Complete Guide for Law Students

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Evidence Law

The law of evidence is the body of rules that governs how facts are proved in judicial proceedings. It is adjectival law, meaning it regulates the machinery through which substantive law is applied rather than creating rights and liabilities of its own. It answers three questions in every case: what facts may be proved, how they may be proved, and by whom. The governing statute is the Evidence Act 2011. It applies to all judicial proceedings in courts of record in Nigeria, with specific exceptions for customary courts, area courts in civil matters, Sharia courts, and arbitration tribunals under section 256(1)....

01 June

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Official and Privileged Communications in Nigeria: State Secrets, Legal Privilege and Fair Hearing

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

In 2019, a federal minister was being investigated for fraud. The prosecution applied to compel the Director-General of the State Security Service to testify about communications made in the course of a national security investigation. The attorney-general objected, citing the public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of state security operations. The court had to decide: does the state's interest in secrecy outweigh the accused's right to have all relevant evidence placed before the court? This is the tension at the heart of official and privileged communications in Nigerian evidence law. On one side sits the general principle that all relevant evidence...

31 May

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Corroboration in Nigerian Evidence Law: When One Witness Is Not Enough

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

In 2017, a young woman testified before a Lagos High Court that she had been sexually assaulted by her employer. She was the only witness to the assault. The accused denied it entirely. The question the court had to answer was not merely whether to believe her, but whether, under Nigerian evidence law, her uncorroborated testimony was sufficient to convict. Corroboration is the evidence law doctrine that deals with exactly this question. It asks: when is a court required to look for additional evidence to support a witness's testimony before acting on it? When is a warning required? And when can...

31 May

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Examination of Witnesses in Nigeria: Examination-in-Chief, Cross-Examination and Re-Examination

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

The moment a witness enters the witness box in a Nigerian court, a structured process begins. There are three stages: the party who called the witness examines them first, then the opposing party cross-examines them, and then the calling party may re-examine. Each stage has its own rules, its own permitted questions, and its own strategic purpose. Counsel who do not understand these rules make mistakes that can ruin cases. Counsel who master them can reshape the entire trajectory of a trial. This article explains each stage of witness examination, the rules that govern questions at each stage, the treatment of...

31 May

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Competence and Compellability of Witnesses in Nigeria: Who Can Testify and Who Must

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

Picture a murder trial where the accused person's wife is the only witness to what happened in their home that night. The prosecution wants to call her. She does not want to testify against her husband. Can the prosecution compel her? Does she have a choice? And what happens if the accused himself wants to testify in his own defence? These questions are answered by the rules of competence and compellability. They are distinct concepts that govern who may give evidence and who can be forced to give it. Understanding them matters not just as a theoretical exercise but as a...

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