Qualities of a Good Brief; Attitude of Court to a Bad/Faulty/Inelegant Brief of Argument

CASE TITLE:  ANYANWU v. FRN & ANOR (2025) LPELR-80716(SC)

JUDGMENT DATE: 7TH MARCH, 2025

PRACTICE AREA: CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE

LEAD JUDGMENT: HABEEB ADEWALE OLUMUYIWA ABIRU, J.S.C.

SUMMARY OF JUDGMENT:

INTRODUCTION:

This appeal borders on criminal law and procedure.

FACTS:

This appeal is against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Lagos.

The Appellant was arraigned before the High Court of Lagos State, along with the second Respondent and one Elizabeth Atuche, on a twenty-seven-count charge consisting of six counts of conspiracy to commit a felony and twenty-one counts of stealing. The Appellant pleaded not guilty to all the counts.

The appellant was the chief financial officer of Bank PHB Plc, while the second Respondent was the managing director of the bank, and Mrs. Elizabeth Atuche is the wife of the second Respondent. Bank PHB Plc (hereinafter called the Bank) was classified as distressed by the Central Bank of Nigeria after a special examination of the Bank’s financial records was conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation in August 2009. After the stress test, the Central Bank of Nigeria intervened in the management and affairs of the bank, and it removed the second Respondent from office in October 2009 and appointed a new managing director in his place. The bank underwent some changes, including being renamed Keystone Bank Limited. The report of the joint examination of the bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation was forwarded to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and a number of the loan transactions carried out by the bank became the subject of criminal investigation. It was this investigation that culminated in the filing of the charge against the Appellant, the second Respondent, and Mrs. Elizabeth Atuche.

​The Appellant, the second Respondent and Mrs. Elizabeth Atuche were alleged to have conspired to steal and to have stolen various sums of money, the property of Bank PHB Plc, by the grant of fictitious loans in the total sum of about N40 Billion and which sums were used to purchase the shares of Bank PHB plc in the names of different companies for the benefit of the second Respondent.

After the trial, the trial Court found the Appellant and the second Respondent guilty and convicted them on Counts One to Eleven, Fourteen to Twenty, Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four. The trial Court sentenced the Appellant to a term of four years’ imprisonment on each count and ordered that the terms of imprisonment were to run consecutively, making it a cumulative period of Eighty years’ imprisonment. The trial Court also ordered the Appellant, along with the second Respondent, to make restitution of the various sums they were found to have stolen from the coffers of the Bank under the head of the counts for which they were both convicted.

​The Appellant was dissatisfied with the judgment and he appealed to Court of Appeal, Lagos Judicial Division. The Court heard the appeal on the merits; it dismissed the notice of motion filed by the first Respondent as well as all the complaints of the Appellant against the judgment of the trial Court, save for the complaint against the consecutive running of the terms of imprisonment; hence this further appeal to the Supreme Court.

ISSUES FOR DETERMINATION:

The Court considered:

i. Whether the Court of Appeal was right in affirming the conviction of the Appellant by the trial Court of the offence of conspiracy to steal and fraudulent conversion of various sums of money to his personal use by using the same to purchase bank shares, notwithstanding that, contrary to the specific averments in the charge against him, the evidence before the Court unequivocally showed that no sums of money whatsoever were received by him or traced to him, no shares were acquired by or for him, no dividends were received by him, and no benefit and no proceeds whatsoever were received by him or for his use.

ii. Whether the Court of Appeal was right when it held that the Appellant went beyond the scope of his duties as the Chief Financial Officer of the Bank in the actions taken by him in making requests for the opening of accounts for customers of the Bank and in making requests for transfer of monies for allotted shares and was therefore guilty of conspiracy to steal and stealing.

iii. Whether the judgment of the Court below is not liable to be set aside for failure to consider the evidence of the Appellant put forward in his defence and for gross denial of the Appellant’s right to a fair hearing when the Court below refused or failed to admit, use, and rely on the material letter dated 27th of December, 2007, after dismissing the first Respondent’s preliminary objection challenging the Appellant’s ground of appeal against the trial Court’s refusal to admit the said letter put forward by the Appellant in his defence to the charge against him at the trial Court.

iv. Whether the Court of Appeal was right in affirming the conviction of the Appellant by the trial Court by reliance on hearsay evidence of extrajudicial statements of persons not called as witnesses before the Court and which evidence was manifestly inconsistent with the evidence on record.

v. Whether the Court of Appeal was not in error when it held that ”upon production of the Record of Proceedings of 13/4/2018 and 8/11/2018 by Counsel to the Appellant, the issue of the missing record was laid to rest”, when in fact the Appellant’s complaint was that the Records of Proceedings supplied to the trial Court by all the parties were materially different and in conflict with one another.

vi. Whether the Court of Appeal was right when it held that the allegation of bias made against the trial Court lacked substance in the face of the hostile attitude of the trial Court in the course of the trial and the prejudicial statements made by the trial Court in its judgment.

vii. Whether, in the light of the evidence before the trial Court, the Court of Appeal was not in error when it held that the order of restitution made against the Appellant and the jail term of eight years imposed on the Appellant were not unreasonable, excessive, and at variance with the requirements of justice.

DECISION/HELD:

In conclusion, the appeal was allowed in part.

RATIOS:

• APPEAL- INTERFERENCE WITH EVALUATION OF EVIDENCE: Duty of the trial Court to evaluate evidence and instance(s) in which an appellate Court will/will not interfere; duty of an appellant who desires an appellate Court to interfere with the evaluation of evidence carried out by the lower Court
• APPEAL- ISSUE(S) FOR DETERMINATION: Whether issues for determination must arise or flow from the ratio decidendi of the judgment
• APPEAL- BRIEF OF ARGUMENT: Qualities of a good brief; Attitude of Court to a bad/faulty/inelegant brief of argument
• APPEAL- INTERFERENCE WITH CONCURRENT FINDING(S) OF FACT(S): Presumption of correctness of findings/concurrent findings of Court; requirements of the law on appeal against same
• CASE LAW- JUDICIAL PRECEDENT/STARE DECISIS: Whether the decision of the Supreme Court is binding on all Courts in Nigeria
• COURT- BIAS OF COURT: Guiding principle in determining the issue of bias
• CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE- INTENTION: How intent can be proved
• CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE- SEIZURE, RESTITUTION, FORFEITURE AND DISPOSITION OF PROPERTY: Position of the law as regards an order of restitution
• CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE- SENTENCING: Discretion of court with respect to sentencing and when an Appellate Court will interfere with same; Factors an appellate Court will consider before altering a sentence
• INTERPRETATION OF STATUTE- RULES OF INTERPRETATION OF STATUTES: Guiding principles in interpretation of statutes

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