31 May

Sticky

Electronic Evidence and Section 84 of the Evidence Act 2011: Admissibility of Computer-Generated Documents

In 2012, a governorship election in Bayelsa State was challenged at the election tribunal. The appellants tendered a computer printout from the INEC website and an online version of a newspaper article as exhibits. Both were admitted at the tribunal. When the matter reached the Supreme Court, the court struck out both exhibits because the appellants had never fulfilled the pre-conditions for admission of electronic evidence under section 84(2) of the Evidence Act 2011.¹ The election petition failed partly as a result. Electronic evidence is now at the centre of nearly every significant case in Nigeria, from election petitions to corruption...

29 May

0 Comments

Sticky

Documentary Evidence: Primary, Secondary and the Rules of Tendering

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

When a defendant in a land case claims that they have a deed of conveyance showing they legitimately purchased the disputed land in 1979, the court will want to see that deed. Not a description of it. Not a witness saying "I know there is a deed." The deed itself. This is the foundational principle behind documentary evidence: the document speaks for itself, and the law has developed precise rules about how documents must be produced, who must produce them, and what happens when the original is not available. Documentary evidence is at the centre of nearly every Nigerian court proceeding....

29 May

0 Comments

Sticky

Facts Not Required to Be Proved: Judicial Notice and Notorious Facts in Nigeria

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

Imagine a trial judge in Lagos who is told, in the middle of a contested criminal matter, that counsel needs to call three witnesses to prove that Lagos State is part of Nigeria. The judge would be right to stare in disbelief. Some facts are so obvious, so universally known, or so well-established in law that requiring formal proof of them would be a waste of everyone's time and an insult to common sense. The law recognises this. Not every fact that is relevant to a case needs to be formally proved through witnesses and documents. Three categories of facts are...

29 May

0 Comments

Sticky

The Doctrine of Estoppel in Nigerian Evidence Law: Types, Operation and Limits

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

A developer tells a farmer in Ogun State: "Do not worry about the fence. Build your house right up to the boundary. I will never enforce my right to the fence line." The farmer, relying on this representation, spends his savings building up to the boundary. Three years later, the developer sells the land to a new buyer who immediately sues the farmer for trespass. Can the new buyer enforce the fence line? The doctrine of estoppel says no, or at least it makes it very difficult. The developer made a representation. The farmer acted on it to his detriment. The...

29 May

0 Comments

Sticky

Presumptions Under the Evidence Act 2011: How Nigerian Courts Assume Facts

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

A woman's husband travels to Kano for business in 2015. He calls her once from the road and is never heard from again. Seven years pass. No letter. No phone call. No word through any family member or mutual acquaintance. In 2022, the woman wants to remarry. Must she produce proof that her husband is dead before she can do so, or does the law help her? The law helps her. After seven years without being heard from, her husband is presumed dead under section 164 of the Evidence Act 2011. She does not need a death certificate. She does not...

28 May

0 Comments

Sticky

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

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Class Notes, Evidence Law

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

0 Comments

Sticky

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

0 Comments

Sticky

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

0 Comments

Sticky

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

0 Comments

Sticky

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....

Class Notes

Join our Newsletter