STATUTORY RECOGNITION OF OPPRESSION AS AN ELEMENT THAT VITATES CONFESSION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR NIGERIA’S CRIMINAL JURISPRUDENCE

Abstract

All over the courts in Nigeria and indeed the world over which has jurisdiction to try offenders, the admissibility of extra judicial statements usually in the form of confession remains one of the most keenly contested issues. The interest usually manifested by the prosecution in confessional statements stem from the fact that once it is admitted in evidence, a conviction of a defendant can proceed upon such confession whether it has been retracted or not. However, both the law and practice relating to criminal trial has from the outset required that what should be admitted and acted upon as a confession must have proceeded voluntarily from the defendant. What constitutes involuntariness that would vitiate confession was as stipulated by the evidence Act. Oppression as a specie of involuntariness was not recognized statutorily in Nigeria until the enactment of Evidence Act 2011. It is however being speculated that interpreting the provisions of section 29 of the Evidence Act, 2011 literally will produce a result different from the intendment of the Legislature.