Generally, provocation has been described to mean some act or series of acts done by the deceased to the accused which would cause in a reasonable man and did cause in the accused a sudden and temporary loss of self-control, rendering the accused so subject to passion as to make him or her for the moment not master of his mind.
At the stage of a ruling on a submission of a no case to answer, otherwise known as a no-case submission, which is made by an accused person charged with crime at the close of the evidence adduced by the prosecution, the court is not called upon to embark on a detailed assessment, evaluation and belief or disbelief of the evidence placed before it with a view to making a finding of guilt or not guilty of the accused person.
To succeed in convicting an offender of murder, the prosecution is required to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the act of the accused which resulted in the death of the deceased fell within the circumstances set forth under section 316 of the Criminal Code which defines the offence of murder. They are:
The provision of section 1 of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 does not require that the acceptance of the sum must be ‘payment in a transaction’ but rather provides that no person shall make or accept cash payment in excess of the sum N 5,000,000.00 or its equivalent, except in a transaction through a financial institution.
ON WHEN A FINDING OR DECISION IS PERVERSE
A finding or decision is characterised as perverse where:
(a) It runs counter to the pleadings and evidence on record; or
(b) the trial court took into account matters which ought not to have been considered; or
(c) the trial court turns a blind eye to the obvious circumstances of the case before it; or
(d) legal principles are wrongly applied to correctly ascertained facts.
For the offence of kidnapping, the prosecution is required to prove the following facts beyond reasonable doubt, namely: –
(a) that the victim was seized and taken away by the accused person(s);
(b) that the victim was taken away against his consent; and
(c) that the victim was taken away without lawful excuse.
Section 270(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) states that there shall be a High Court for each State of the Federation. The Constitution only created one High Court for each State of the Federation. While the High Courts of different States are divided into judicial divisions, that is only for easy dispatch of business and administrative convenience. The jurisdiction of the High Court of a State, including Jigawa State remains one and unbroken. The jurisdiction of a court is not fragmented by the creation of judicial divisions.
A wrong judgment may be set aside as being perverse or for a number of other reasons but such a judgment may not necessarily be a null judgment. A mistrial or a misdirection that caused miscarriage of justice may lead to the judgment being set aside. Where it is established on appeal that the trial court in coming to its decision, either has applied wrong principles of law or has taken into account irrelevant matters which it ought not to have taken into account or has failed to take relevant matters into account, the appellate court will not hesitate to set aside the judgment. [Nnadozie v. Mbagwu (2008) 3 NWLR (Pt. 1074) 363; Kim v. State (1992)4 NWLR (Pt. 233) 17; Onu v. Idu (2006) 12 NWLR (Pt. 995) 657 referred to.] (Pp. 474-475, paras. F-B).
The purpose of raising issues for determination in an appeal is to identify what is in issue in the complaints against specified and identified portions of the judgment appealed against in the grounds of appeal. Just as the grounds of appeal from which they are raised, the issues for determination must raise questions concerning the particular portion of the judgment complained against in the ground or grounds of appeal so as to enable the determination of the real questions in controversy in the grounds of appeal. (P. 243, paras. G-H).
The purpose or objective or intendment of a legislative provision that vests a public duty on a public officer for the benefit of any person is to make the execution or performance of the duty mandatory, irrespective of whether it is a permissive or mandatory word that is used to impose the duty. So that where, as in this present case, the permissive or discretionary word ‘may’ is used to impose a duty on a public officer to observe or protect the right of an arrested suspect not to be forced to confess that he committed the offence he is suspected of committing, the courts have consistently, over time, decided that the word ‘may’ is legislatively intended to impose a mandatory duty to observe and protect the right of the arrested suspect against forced self-incrimination. (P. 483, paras. B-D).
