Admission of an offence by an accused person to other persons may amount to sufficient corroboration in law. So in R. v. Francis Kufi (1960) WNLR 1, the accused was charged with indecent assault against a young girl of 10 years. It was held, and rightly in my view, that the admission of the offence by the accused to the father of the girl was sufficient corroboration in law.
— Iguh, JSC. Okon Iko v State (2001) – SC.177/2001
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In Dagayya v. The State (2006) 7 NWLR (Pt 980) 637 held thus: “Corroboration entails the act of supporting or strengthening a statement of a witness by fresh evidence of another witness. Corroboration does not mean that the witness corroborating must use the exact or very like words, unless the matter involves some arithmetic”. PER TOBI J.S.C.
Thus, where such evidence is by error or otherwise admitted, then it is the duly of the trial court to expunge it in giving its judgment. If it fails to do so, the appeal court will reject such evidence and consider the case in the light of the legally admitted evidence See Owoniyi v. Omotoso (1961) 2 SCNLR 57, (1961) All NLR 304; Alase v. Ilu (1964) 1 All NLR 390. In any event, it is trite that wrongful admission of inadmissible evidence is not of itself a ground for the reversal of any decision. Similarly, the wrongful exclusion of admissible evidence is not of itself a ground for the reversal of any decision. All these are however dependent on the view held by the appeal court on whether the evidence wrongly admitted or wrongly excluded would have the effect of changing the decision even if admitted or excluded.
— I.T. Muhammad JSC. Musa Abubakar v. E.I. Chuks (SC.184/2003, 14 DEC 2007)
From TORHANBA V. POLICE (1956) NRNLR at 94 through to SHOYMBO V. STATE (1974) 10 SC 91, OYEDIRAN V. REPUBLIC (1967) NMLR 122, OKOBI V. STATE (supra) and thence to JOHN NWACHUKWU V. STATE (1986) LPELR – 2085 (SC), the Court persisted on the import of the procedure it propounded under Section 179 of the Criminal Procedure Code Act. In all these cases the Court insists that “the lesser offence” Section 179 allows a Court to convict an accused rather than the greater offence he was formally charged for is a combination of some of the several particulars of the offence charged. The ‘operative’ word is “lesser” and not “another” offence. To justify the conviction of the accused for the lesser offence he must be seen to have had notice for the lesser offence by virtue of the notice of the greater offence he was given by the formal charge. The evidence on which the accused is convicted though short of proving the greater offence, it is such that it establishes the lesser offence. See OLUMIDE SEGUN V. THE STATE (2018) LPELR – 44693 (SC) and SALIU V. STATE (2018) LPELR – 44060 (SC).
— M.D. Muhammad, JSC. Onukwube v. State (2020) – SC.1214C/2018
I now come to consider the class of criminal cases in which corroboration is required to prove the guilt of the accused. It is common ground that in all cases where the law provides that corroboration is necessary, a conviction of an accused can only be valid when there is such corroborative evidence. That is the case where statutory corroboration is required. But there are other cases in which though there is no statutory requirement for corroboration, yet as a matter of practice, corroboration though not essential, is almost always required before conviction. The latter is mostly in cases of evidence on oath. Any witness in any of these categories would conveniently be regarded as “suspect” witness and that is why the law requires that if any conviction is to be based on their evidence, the Judge must warn himself or the jury as the case may be, of the danger of convicting on the uncorroborated evidence of such witness. Lord Diplock in D.P.P. v. Hester (supra) explained the danger sought to be cleared by this rule when he said on P.244 of the report that:- ‘The danger sought to be obviated by the common law rule in each of these three categories of witnesses is that the story told by the witness may be inaccurate for reasons not applicable to other competent witnesses, whether the risk be of deliberate inaccuracy, as in the case of accomplices, or unintentional inaccuracy, as in the case of children and some complainants in cases of sexual offences. What is looked for under the common law rule is confirmation from some other source that the suspect witness is telling the truth in some part of his story which goes to show that the accused committed the offence with which he is charged.’
— Kalgo, J.S.C. Okon Iko v State (2001) – SC.177/2001
I may repeat that an admission does not necessarily mean proof of what is contained therein. An admission relied upon by any party is not ipso facto accepted to be the truth by the court once it is not in accordance with the truth of the case. It is the duty of the court to decide the case in accordance with the facts pleaded and proved to be true.
— Olatawura JSC. African Continental Bank Ltd. v. Alhaji Umaru Gwagwada (SC.26/1990, 29 APR 1994)
In law it is true, and as was ably submitted by the learned counsel for the Appellant, that for an admission to have probative value it must clearly, precisely and unequivocally express the admitting mind of the person. Thus, an alleged admission lacking in exactness and firmness of purpose would not qualify as an admission. An admission must therefore, be direct and positive to be given the requisite probative weight in the ascription of probative value by the Court.
– PER B. A. GEORGEWILL, J.C.A. ZENITH BANK PLC v. WAILI (2022) – CA/A/964/2020
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