NIGERIA DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION V. CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA
June 19, 2025ANTHONY ISIBOR V. THE STATE
June 19, 2025Legalpedia Citation: (2002) Legalpedia (SC) 14017
In the Supreme Court of Nigeria
Fri Mar 1, 2002
Suit Number: SC. 290/2001
CORAM
SALIHU MODIBBO ALFA BELGORE, JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT
ODILI
EMMANUEL OLAYINKA AYOOLA, JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT
PARTIES
MOHAMMED SANI ABACHA APPELLANTS
RESPONDENTS
AREA(S) OF LAW
SUMMARY OF FACTS
The appellant/accused was charged in the Lagos High Court along with three(3) others for the offences of Conspiracy to murder, murder and accessory after the fact of murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, three years after the alleged offence. ?
HELD
APPEAL ALLOWED ?
ISSUES
1. Whether the negative preliminary comments by the Court of Appeal on the desirability of the Appellant’s recourse to the established procedure for quashing defective information was correct in law and whether such comments did not foreordain the fate of the appeal regardless of the merits thereof?2. Whether the Appellant’s right to have a fair hearing in the sense of having the issues raised by him given a full and dispassionate consideration by the Court of Appeal was not violated when the court determined the appeal without any consideration of the specific complaint made against the rationes of the Lagos State High Court in coming to the conclusion that the Appellant was linked to the offences in the information, regard being had to the standard set by law?3. Whether the Court of Appeal was correct in finding as the lower court had done that there were sufficient facts and inferences in the proofs of evidence upon which the Respondent could be said to have established a ‘prima facie’ against the Appellant warranting an explanation by him in respect of the counts of conspiracy to murder and murder respectively.4. Whether the Court of Appeal was correct in law to have forged a nexus between the Appellant’s statement to the police wherein he assisted 2 of his father’s former employees among many others to resettle themselves and his state of mind when he released his car and security driver on different unrelated occasions to the self-confessed killer of Kudirat Abiola so as to reach the conclusion that he was linked to the offences charged.5. Whether the Court of Appeal was correct in law when it affirmed the decision of the Lagos State High Court that it had jurisdiction to try the offence of accessory after the fact of murder as charged herein and that a prima facie case had been made out against the Appellant on the twin counts of accessory after the fact of murder, regard being had to the contents of the information and proof of evidence??
RATIONES DECIDENDI
PRIMA FACIE CASE – MEANING OF-
“Prima facie is difficult to define precisely and some vital ingredients are clear. Facts that are clearly revealing a crime and the crime links an accused person may be prima facie evidence that the accused has something to explain at the trial. But that is not always the whole that is needed as circumstances must indicate….What is meant by prima facie (case)? It only means that there is a ground for proceeding… a prima facie case is not the same as proof which comes later when the court has to find whether the accused is guilty or not guilty…the evidence discloses a prima facie case when it is such that if un-contradicted and if believed it will be sufficient to prove the case against the accused” PER BELGORE J.S.C
OFFENCE OF CONSPIRACY NATURE OF – HOW PROVED
“Finally, the best evidence of conspiracy is usually obtained from one of the conspirators or from inferences…The overt act or omission which evidence conspiracy is the actus reus and the actus reus of each and every conspirator must be referable and very often is the only proof of the criminal agreement which is called conspiracy…They need not all have started the conspiracy at the same time for a conspiracy started by some persons may be joined at a later stage or later stages by others. The gist of the offence of conspiracy is the meeting of the mind of the conspirators. This is hardly capable of direct proof for the offences of conspiracy are complete by the agreement to do the act or make the omission complained about. Hence, conspiracy is a matter of inference from certain criminal acts of the parties concerned done in pursuance of an apparent criminal purpose in common between them and in proof of conspiracy the acts or omissions (and or commissions) of any of the conspirators in furtherance of the common design may be and very often are given in evidence against any other or others of the conspirators. It is therefore, the duty of the court in every case of conspiracy to ascertain as best as it could the evidence of the complexity of any of those charged with that offence.” PER BELGORE J.S.C
OFFENCES IN INFORMATION – NEED FOR PROSECUTION TO BE PRECISE AND NOT TO GAMBLE
“The information as laid is therefore to my mind very defective indeed. It is a muddle, confusion. The information as laid I repeat is inherently defective and bad in material particulars. Whoever drafted it must have been in a confused state of mind. Without looking at or reading the proofs of evidence one can easily come to the irresistible conclusion that the prosecution or the respondent is gambling. It does not appear to know who committed the murder and who to charge in this case. And if it does, the information does not point to that direction…..The Respondent must not be allowed to gamble. Prosecution is not a game of chess! If I may ask, where are these Mohammed Abdul a.k.a Katako and Aminu Mohammed? If they exist, have they been charged in a Court of law? There is no indication anywhere. There is no doubt that they could among others be the murderers of Kudirat Abiola(f) as stated in counts 3 & 4? Joinder of all the 4-counts in a single information is not proper being offences committed individually by three sets of people that have nothing to do with one another….The information is clearly misleading, embarrassing as well as uncertain to say the least. It must therefore not be allowed to stand” PER BELGORE J.S.C
PRIMA FACIE CASE – HOW DETERMINED
“However, in deciding whether a prima facie case exists for the accused to answer in information for indictment, the authorizing judge, or the judge before whom the indictment is placed, must look at the proofs of evidence attached to the information in totality and not to pick words out of context. The idea to indict through information is to save time in prosecution by obviating the necessity for a preliminary investigation before a magistrate” PER BELGORE J.S.C
PROCEDURE FOR LAYING INFORMATION AT THE HIGH COURT – EFFECT OF USE OF WRONG PROCEDURE
“Thus it seems that no format has been devised in states of the federation governed by Criminal Procedure Law for laying information and a simple letter is enough insofar as it is accompanied by proofs of evidence and the charges containing the counts. It is a different procedure in the States applying Criminal Procedure Code Law e.g. Kaduna or Plateau State, where Rules are specifically made for application to prefer charges under S.185 Criminal Procedure Code Law (See Criminal Procedure (Application to prefer a charge in the High Court) Rules). Suffice however that wrong method, if letter writing is such, will not vitiate the application once it is clear what the intendment of the Attorney-General is” PER BELGORE J.S.C
AN INDICTMENT ON INFORMATION – WHETHER IT CAN BE CHALLENGED BY AN ACCUSED
“All power to settle issues between parties is vested in courts and court must be vigilant that genuine issues and controversies are settled so that no accused person will be oppressed either directly or indirectly through act of prosecution; if not we shall have persecution in place of prosecution. It is for this reason that an accused person, despite the power to file indictment on the information, should not be indicted to face trial that from the outset it was clear he should not face…sections 72, 77 and 340 of Criminal Procedure Law should not be read as absolute and unchallengeable. In them, one cannot read that they cannot be challenged. They can be quashed for good reasons, especially where no prima facie manifests against an accused” PER BELGORE J.S.C
INDICTMENT ON INFORMATION – CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN SAME CAN BE QUASHED BY THE COURT BEFORE TRIAL
“It is never the practice in England to take filing of information as an absolute right to have the indictment asked for automatically tried. There must be facts in the proofs of evidence to justify the grant of the application. Otherwise, indictment will always be allowed to be tried where enough particulars are absent in the proofs or evidence. I must not be understood to hold that guilt of the accused must be established before approving the information to file the indictment; far from it. There must be prima facie case to be tried and the accused must be sufficiently linked to be in a situation where an explanation is necessary from him at the trial” PER BELGORE J.S.C
DUTY OF COURT WHERE AN INDUCTMENT ON INFORMATION IS CHALLENGED
“It is therefore necessary when the application is made to quash indictment on the information for the trial judge to attend to such an application dispassionately and rule on it. The best way to do this is to read all the depositions made by potential witnesses and accused persons so as to find if there was a prima facie case for the accused to answer. But what is prima facie case” PER BELGORE J.S.C
ON SOURCE OF POWER OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL INITIATE CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS
“It is noteworthy that S. 211 of the Constitution relates to power of State Attorney-General to institute and undertake criminal proceedings against any person before any court of law in Nigeria other than a Court-martial in respect of any offence created by or under any law of the House of Assembly. Certainly S.221 (1) (a) of the Constitution empowers the Attorney-General of a State to institute criminal prosecution as stated above, but that is just constitutional provision as to powers of the Attorney-General. The enabling statute is the Criminal Procedure law” PER BELGORE J.S.C
ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT – NEED TO PROVE THAT THE MURDER WAS COMMITTED BY THE PERSON OF WHOM ACCUSED IS SAID TO BE ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT
“In this indictment the appellant was charged for being an accessory after the fact to murder under S.322 of the Criminal Code. The two counts mentioned Mohammed Abdul (a.k.a. Katako) and Mohammed Aminu respectively as having committed the murder to which appellant became accessory after the fact. Neither of the two is charged with murder. The practice was either to charge the accessory along with the main offender or charge them separately. But before the accessory after an offence can be tried, if charged alone, there must be proof that indeed a murder was indeed committed by the person the appellant is said to be accessory after the fact. Nobody can be an accessory to offence not proved” PER BELGORE J.S.C
POWER AND DUTY OF COURT TO PREVENT ABUSE OF ITS PROCESS
“The courts have inherent power, to prevent abuse of their process by any of the parties, whether plaintiff or defendant, prosecution or defence, so that as long as democratic process exists nobody will have his rights curtailed” PER BELGORE J.S.C
CASES CITED
None.
STATUTES REFERRED TO
Sections 72, 77 and 340 of Criminal Procedure LawS.322 of the Criminal CodeS.221 (1) (a) of the Constitution?
