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LIST OF LAWS EVERY NIGERIAN INVESTOR SHOULD NOTE

LIST OF LAWS EVERY NIGERIAN INVESTOR SHOULD NOTE

by | Jan 12, 2015 | Uncategorized



Credits – www.ynaija.com
Bet you have heard that the Nigerian economy is explosive right now and many corporations around the world from China to the Middle East
and Europe want a piece of the action. As a Legalnaija reader, we hope you are
part of this economic revolution and have here prepared a checklist on some of
the many relevant laws to pay attention to if you intend doing business in
Nigeria. These laws have corresponding agencies who regulate the law and ensure
compliance with its rules. The list of laws include;

  1. Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) CAP C20), LFN 2004
  2. Companies Income Tax Act, CAP C21, LFN 2004
  3. Arbitration and Conciliation Act, CAP A18, LFN 2004 
  4.  Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment Act) No. 15,
    2007
  5.  Customs & Excise Management Act, CAP C45, LFN 2004 
  6.  

    Export (Incentives & Miscellaneous Provision) Act, CAP
    E19, LFN 2004 

  7.  Federal High Court Act, CAP F12, LFN 2004 
  8.  

    Foreign Exchange (Monitoring & Miscellaneous Provisions)
    Act CAP F34 LFN 2004 

  9.  Immigration Act, CAP
    11, LFN 2004 
  10.  

    Insurance Act (No.1) 2003 

  11.  Investments & Securities Act 2007
  12.  Industrial Inspectorate Act, CAP 18, LFN 2004 
  13.  Industrial Dev. (Income Tax Relief) Act, Cap17, LFN 2004 
  14.  National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion Act,
    CAP N62, LFN 2004 
  15. Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission Act, N17,LFN 2004
  16. Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act, No. 20 ,2007
  17. Stamp Duties Act, CAP C58, LFN 2004
  18. Petroleum Profits Tax Act( CAP P!#) LFN 2004 
  19. Partnership Law of Lagos State
Adedunmade Onibokun,
Esq
@adedunmade
PENALTY FOR ARSON UNDER THE LAW

PENALTY FOR ARSON UNDER THE LAW

by | Jan 7, 2015 | Uncategorized


 

Credits -Telegraph.com

If you have ever been on the war path of an angry mob or
riot, you may have realised their penchant for burning things. Before an
observer can say the words “Jack Robinson”, cars, buildings, stores and other
valuable properties are already going up in smoke. Many a-times, hoodlums have
gone on rampage and vandalized and burnt lots of property. This craving to set
things on fire becomes worse when a mob is trying to serve justice on an
alleged offender, either a thief or gbomo-gbomo kidnapper. Petrol,
matches and an abandoned tyre always seem to appear from nowhere. It is no news
that mob justice is a crime and no one should participate in such act, we all are
guaranteed a right of fair hearing in the constitution and an alleged offender
should be reported to the police or to the appropriate channels of authority.  But let’s concentrate on the burning side of
things and let me tell you a thing or two about arson.

Arson is an offence under the Criminal Code Act and the
provisions on it can be found in Chapter 42, Sections 443 -446 of the Act.
Section 443 defines arson as an act done by –

  1. Any person who wilfully and unlawfully sets fire to the
    following things – 
  2. Any building or structure whatsoever, whether completed or
    not;
  3. Any vessel, whether completed or not;
  4. Any state of cultivated vegetable produce, or of mineral or
    vegetable, fuel.

A mine, or the workings, fittings, or appliances of a mine,
is guilty of a felony, and is liable to imprisonment for life.
 

Credits – Breakingnews.com

In a nutshell, if you set any of the above things on fire wilfully,
you are likely to spend your life behind bars. Did I just see you drop that
match box, lol. Moreover, it’s not important that the arsonist is successful in
committing the act. As anyone who attempts to wilfully and unlawfully set fire
to anything in the above list will be found guilty of a felony and is liable to
imprisonment for fourteen years. 
You may also be surprised that Nigerians like food thus it’s
also a crime to wilfully and unlawfully set fire to cultivated vegetable
produce, whether standing or cut; a crop of hay or grass under cultivation,
whether standing or cut; or any standing trees, saplings or shrubs. Committing
such an act can find a guilty person liable to imprisonment for fourteen years.
Also an attempt to commit the above stated crime is a felony and any guilty
party is liable to imprisonment for seven years.
Adedunmade Onibokun, Esq.
@dunmade
PENALTY FOR DEALING IN STOLEN PROPERTY

PENALTY FOR DEALING IN STOLEN PROPERTY

by | Jan 6, 2015 | Uncategorized


Credits – criminallawyerinnj.com

It is morally wrong to steal, whether its a million dollars
or just a few Naira notes. At least from the way I was raised, that is and the
Nigerian Criminal Code Act, CAP C38, LFN 2004 confirms same. Recently, I read
about a robbery syndicate who specialised in stealing cars and selling them off,
the members had been apprehended by the police and the person who disposed of
the cars for them was also arrested and prosecuted.  
It is a crime to receive stolen or fraudulently obtained
property and such person may be found to be as guilty as the person who stole
the property in the first place. Thus, if a friend of yours steals or
fraudulently obtains a property and hands same over to you for safe keeping or
disposal, you will be liable and found guilty for being in possession of the
said item.

The law that supports the aforementioned position can be
found in Chapter C38, Sections 427 of the Criminal Code Act. It provides that –
Any person who receives anything which has been obtained by means of an act
that constitutes a felony or misdemeanour, knowing same to be so obtained, is
guilty of a felony. It does not matter if the act was done outside Nigeria, all
that matters is that it would have been a crime if done in Nigeria and also a
crime under the laws of the place where the act was committed. 
 

Credits – straittimes.com

If the offence by which the thing obtained is a felony, the
offender is liable to imprisonment for 14 years, if the thing so obtained was a
postal matter, chattel, money or valuable security, the offender will be liable
to imprisonment for life. In other cases, such offender is liable to
imprisonment for seven years. 
Note that in order to prove that receiving of anything under
these circumstances stated above, it is sufficient to show that the accused
person has either alone or jointly with some other persons, had the thing in
his possession, or aid in concealing it or disposing of it. 
From the above, you must have learnt that not only is stealing
a crime but also that receiving stolen property is seriously frowned upon and
anyone found guilty of same may be liable to as much as life imprisonment. 
Adedunmade Onibokun Esq
@adedunmade  
WELCOME TO 2015

WELCOME TO 2015

by | Jan 6, 2015 | Uncategorized


Credits- smsread.com

Legalnaija will like to welcome everyone to the year 2015. Last
year was awesome for the blog, we had more articles than the previous year; a
lot more people visited the blog and many lawyers contributed to our goal of promoting
the rule of law in Nigeria by informing the public about their legal rights and
obligations. We hope you found the articles informative and interesting. Thanks
for reading, sharing and engaging in 2014 and hopefully, we will achieve more
together this year. 
A lot of exciting legal issues will certainly be discussed
this year, the first being the coming elections in February, 2015. Hope you have
been reading our blog posts on electoral offences and have been sharing them
with your friends.  Also we will be unveiling
our new website and invite you to participate in many interesting trends. 
In a nutshell, we are taking our service up a notch and you
are in the centre of periscope. We hope to empower Nigerians like never before
with legal information and work together with more stakeholders and
organisations. We will however hate to leave you out of all our lovely plans,
therefore if you have anything you will like to share or comment about, pls
drop a mail @info@legalnaija.com or
contact us @legalnaija on any of our social media handles.
Looking forward to a great 2015 and wish you the best.
Cheers
For: Legalnaija
Adedunmade Onibokun  
Various penalties for crimes & offences under Nigerian law

Various penalties for crimes & offences under Nigerian law

by | Dec 23, 2014 | Uncategorized


I attended a military secondary
school in the heart of Abeokuta and trust me, aside from the regular koboko
(horse whips), we had a fine array of punishments that students were subject to
when it came to discipline. They included: manual labour, plant-your-pot,
crawling on gravel with your bare knees, frog jumps and a host of many others.
Anyone who attended a military school must have a fair idea of what I am
talking about.

Likewise, under Nigerian law, there
are a number of punishments that courts can order to discipline erring
offenders, they include- 
  • Capital Punishment
Meaning a person can be sentenced to
death. This is usually ordered for very serious crimes such as murder.
  • Caning
Wheneever a male person who in the
opinion of the court has not attained 17 years has been found guilty of an
offence, the court may in addition to or in substitution for any other
punishment to which he is liable.
  • Forfeiture
When a person is convicted of certain
offences, the court may, in addition to or in lieu of any penalty which may be
imposed, order the forfeiture to the State of any property which has passed in
connection with the commission of the offence.
  • Imprisonment
Persons found guilty of crimes may
also be sentenced to serve prison jail terms.
  • Fines
The courts may order a found guilty
of a criminal act to pay a fine.
  • Prerogative
The prerogative of mercy can be
exercised in accordance with the constitution. 
Adedunmade Onibokun, Esq
@adedunmade
PENALTY FOR BRIBERY DURING ELECTIONS

PENALTY FOR BRIBERY DURING ELECTIONS

by | Dec 23, 2014 | Uncategorized

 Editor’s
Note: – This is the 3rd blog informing the Nigerian public on
electoral offences in the Electoral Act; here is the first post on Punishment
and buying Voter’s cards  and the
second on penalty
for improper use of voter’s cards. 
I guess you must have heard the term
“stomach infrastructure”, if you
have not, it simply describes an act peculiar to Nigerian politicians, where
they supply and share food items to the electorate in a bid to sway their
voting decision in the politician’s favour. An example is the Ekiti elections
which were held earlier this year which had persons vying for the seat of the
Governor sharing bags of rice to people in the state. 

Many unscrupulous politicians however
do not stop there, but they go the extra mile in securing their electoral
victories by bribing both the electorate and the electoral officers. I believe
Nigeria should have evolved beyond all forms of electoral irregularities and it
is very important that all Nigerians are informed that it is a crime to
conspire to bribe or to actually bribe anyone with the goal of securing
electoral favours. 
The Electoral Act in section 124
provides for the act and offence of bribery or conspiring to bribe during
elections. It provides in essence that anyone 
who –
  • Directly or indirectly offers any
    money or valuable consideration;
  • Corruptly makes or receives any gift,
    loan, promise or agreement with the aim of influencing the return or imposition
    to an elective office;
  • Pays monies to be used in bribery
    during elections; or
  • Induces any person to vote or refrain
    from voting at any election, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to
    a maximum fine of N500, 000 or 12 months imprisonment or both.
Furthermore, a voter commits an
offence of bribery, where before or during an election directly or indirectly
receives, agrees or contracts for any money, gift, loan or consideration for
himself or another for voting or refraining to vote in an election. Such person
is liable on conviction to a maximum fine of N500, 000 or imprisonment
for 12 months or both. 
Also, persons who aid in committing
the above offences are also guilty and any candidate who has knowledge and
consents to any of the acts mentioned above is guilty as well.  
I humbly implore all politicians to
stop destroying our Nation and our electoral process by offering bribes. I also
implore all Nigerians to do the honourable thing and not sell their votes. We
deserve credible leadership in Nigeria and not the opposite.
Adedunmade Onibokun, Esq
@adedunmade

PROFILE – PROF. YEMI OSIBAJO SAN

PROFILE – PROF. YEMI OSIBAJO SAN

by | Dec 17, 2014 | Uncategorized

Credits – Google 

Prof. Yemi
Osinbajo is the senior partner at SimmonsCooper Partners. Yemi is a professor
of law and a former attorney-general of Lagos state and commissioner for
justice. He is also a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN). Yemi was educated at
the University of Lagos, Nigeria (LLB, 1978) and the London School of Economics
(LLM, 1980). He was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Nigeria in
1979. Yemi has 31 years of litigation experience including significant trial
and appellate work. He has also authored several books on civil procedure in
Nigerian superior courts, rules of evidence and justice reform.

Yemi
supervises the commercial litigation group at SimmonsCooper Partners (SCP), a
leading commercial litigation and corporate commercial firm in Nigeria. With a
multi-jurisdictional competence spanning Nigeria, the United States and the
United Kingdom, SCP fuses sound legal counsel with superior advocacy, and
personal and responsive service. SCP provides a very comprehensive and
integrated range of litigation, transactional, advisory and several support
services to a vast array of clients. 
Yemi has
conducted very important constitutional and precedential cases before the
Nigerian Supreme Court. Some of these include fiscal disputes between the
federating units and the federal government; disputes regarding the ownership
and control of oil and gas resources; town and physical planning disputes between
the federating units and the federal government; an international territorial
jurisdictional dispute in the West African sub-regional court; shareholder
disputes involving a multinational, private investors and state-owned
investment corporations and energy disputes arising from multinational
participation in power projects in Nigeria. 
 
In other
cases, Yemi has advised and represented clients in a broad range of commercial
and corporate issues including securities litigation, investments and
divestments, joint ventures, oil block acquisitions, product liability,
fiduciary duties of directors, intellectual property, and corporate valuations.
He is also involved in statutory and regulatory appraisal representation before
the legislature and federal and state agencies. 
He was appointed
Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in 1999 and
reappointed for a second term in 2003.  While in
public office as attorney general, Yemi is credited with undertaking
far-reaching significant judicial reform in Lagos state, addressing critical
areas as judges’ recruitment, remuneration, training and discipline. In
addition, he addressed access to justice for the poor by establishing
appropriate institutions in the Office of the Public Defender and the Citizens
Mediation Centre. In honour of his contributions to legal reform and the
development of law in Nigeria, a compendium of essays on Nigerian
constitutional law was compiled.
Yemi is a member of the International Bar Association and the British
Institute of International and Comparative Law and has served in the Nigerian
Body of Benchers and the Council for Legal Education of Nigeria. He is
currently an independent director of CitiBank Nigeria and an ethics adviser to
the board of the Africa Development Bank. He has also served in various
capacities within the United Nations Organisation. Yemi speaks frequently at
several commercial litigation events locally and internationally. He is
actively involved in the pursuit of legal education reform in Nigeria. He also served as a staff member of the
United Nations and Member of the United Nation’s Secretary General’s Committee
of Experts on Conduct and Discipline of UN Peacekeeping personnel around the
globe.
Prof. Yemi
Osibajo has been announced as the Vice –Presidential candidate and running mate
to General Buhari in the 2015 elections under the APC. He also pastors at Olive
Tree House of Prayer for All Nations, Banana Island, a parish of the Redeemed
Christian Church of God and lives in Lagos with his wife and three children.
PENALTY FOR IMPERSONATION

PENALTY FOR IMPERSONATION

by | Dec 16, 2014 | Uncategorized

Credits – Google
Scenarios.
  • Mr. Alex was apprehended by the Police last Tuesday
    for impersonating an officer, he was seen extorting money from commercial motor
    cycle riders and when asked to identify himself, it was revealed that he was
    actually a  fraud.
  • Mr. Segun Chinedu Ibrahim has fraudulently
    put himself out as a lawyer and was fraudulently representing clients in court,
    upon suspicion and investigation, he was arrested and charged with impersonation.
The law

To impersonate another is wrong. The Oxford
dictionary defines the word “impersonate” as “ the act of pretending to be
someone else”. The law frowns on impersonation because the aim of the act is usually
to deceive another in to believing someone is who he really is not. A clear
example includes the arrest and prosecution of several persons who were
pretending to be lawyers, policemen or members of the armed forces.   
In Nigeria, like most other legal jurisdictions,
impersonation is a crime and duly provided for in our Criminal Code Act in
Chapter 46. Section 484 in this chapter provides that – Any person who, with
intent to defraud any person, falsely represents himself to be some other
person, living or dead, is guilty of a felony, and is liable to imprisonment
for three years. Similarly, as provided in Section 487 of the Act, any person
whom a document has been giving to certify him for some certain privileges and
proceeds to give such document to another with the intention that the other
person presents himself as qualified to bear such document is guilty of a
felony and liable to imprisonment for 3 years. For instance, a policeman who
gives his official identity card to another person to use in impersonating the
police officer is guilty of the above offence. 
On the other hand, any person who, with the
purpose of obtaining any employment, utters any document of the nature of a testimonial
or character given to another person, is guilty of a misdemeanor and is liable
to imprisonment for 2 years (Section 488). Persons who lend out their
certificates to others for the use of impersonation are also not excluded from
punishment as such person is guilty of a misdemeanor, and is liable to
imprisonment for three years. 
Adedunmade OnibokunEsq
@adedunmade
dunmadeo@yahoo.com 
PENALTY FOR IMPROPER USE OF VOTER’S CARDS

PENALTY FOR IMPROPER USE OF VOTER’S CARDS

by | Dec 12, 2014 | Uncategorized

Editor’s note: This is the second post in a series informing
the public on Electoral offences, you can find the first post here – Punishment
for buying and selling voter’s cards. 
The recent Presidential primaries of the APC and PDP caused
some excitement over the last couple of days. Elections are coming closer by
the day and political parties are ensuring they present their best candidate
before the electorate in 2015. Many Nigerians are also gearing up for the elections
as most conversations now centre on the coming elections or the roles being
played by any of the many protagonists and antagonists in the political movies playing in Nigeria now. As we all
get closer to 2015, its quite important that we all protect out votes and
ensure that we report any electoral criminality that we may observe or suspect. 

An example of such criminality is the improper use of Voter’s
cards as provided for in  Section 120 of the Electoral Act 2010 which provides that – Any person who –

  • being entitled to a Voter’s card, gives it to some other
    person for use at an election other than an officer and acting in the course of
    his duty under the act;
  • not being an officer acting in the course of his duty under
    the Act, receives any voters card in the name of some other person or persons
    for use at an election uses it fraudulently;
  •  without lawful excuse has in his possession more than one Voter’s
    card; or 
  •  buys, sells, procures or deals, with a voters card otherwise
    than as provided in the Act: commits an offence and is liable on conviction to
    a maximum fine of N1,000,000 (One million naira) ir imprisonment for 12 months
    or both.  

From the abovce provisons of the law, it is obvious anyone
caught commiting such criminality will have some explaining to do and possibly
some jail term to serve or fine to pay, thus it’s important no one participates
in such acts. Please share this article with as many people as you can to
discourage electoral offences. 
Adedunmade Onibokun, Esq
@adedunmade

CREATING AN INVESTMENT CULTURE: NO RIGHT TIME TO INVEST By Ahmed O Banu

CREATING AN INVESTMENT CULTURE: NO RIGHT TIME TO INVEST By Ahmed O Banu

by | Dec 10, 2014 | Uncategorized

“A stitch in time
saves nine” said a tailor down the road.
I am very sure a lot
of us would have wondered “How does a stitch save nine? Why nine?”.For
people like me who didn’t grow up loving English (weird), the phrase
wouldn’t have been given a lot of thought. However, I actually gave it a
thought today and thanks to “Google”our reliable companion, I can
authoritatively tell what it means. Simply put, it means “why don’t you do
what you have to do now and stop procrastinating”. Okay, English teachers,
review my script and tell me how close I got.
How does this relate
to investing? Hmmmmm…Wait for it.

The humble years I’ve
spent diving into the world of finance, swallowing every bit of knowledge I can
chew as spinach to succeed in what I now love so much, has taught me that one’s
ability to accumulate substantial wealth – the end result of consistently
making meaningful investment returns – depends on one’s ability and willingness
to take on risk. As the father of modern portfolio theory; Harry Markowitz,
said “the higher the risk the higher the return”. Hence, the very
aggressive risk takers will definitely become wealthier than their fellow peers
at a future date over a certain time horizon, all else being equal.
An individual’s
ability and willingness to take on risk is dependent on a lot of personal and
economic variables which includes but is not limited to; source of wealth,
measure of wealth, stage of life etc. I’d like that we concentrate on just
these three variables and see how it is that a lot of us might end up not
attaining the level of wealth we desire.
Let’s not dwell on
sources of wealth because it’s as clear as it can be. Our ability and
willingness to take risk and become as wealthy as we desire depends on our
source of wealth; be it the 9-5 guy working in an Oil company; the investment
banker who works 24/7 or the easy going entrepreneur looking forward to the
next day to make a profit. Howwealthy we can be depends on the amount of money
we earn. Therefore, we can definitely say a man that has three sources of
income is wealthier than the other with just one. However, the flipside to
investing is that, it’s not the quantity of wealth that
determines one’s ability and willingness to take risk but the way and manner we
perceive our wealth. This is in the sense that one might earn a lot but still
feel or actually be broke.
Let’s put this into
perspective, Mr A has three sources of income and earns a total some of NGN
1,000,000 monthly but spends NGN 800,000 out of it before the next month’s
receipt date while Mr B earns NGN 400,000 monthly and spends NGN 100,000 only.
Without a reasonable doubt, Mr A is the baller, the guy we all want to be like (I
definitelywant to be like him, who wouldn’t). Based on sources of wealth being
our factor to defining one’s ability and willingness to take risk, Mr A is just
the guy we looking for. But do a simple math; on a monthly, Mr B has NGN
100,000 more to invest and make himself wealthier than Mr A at future date over
a certain time horizon. So who is the baller now?J
The question then is;
who would you rather be? Mr A; who lives for the moment (YOLO) and forgets what
the future holds or Mr B; who lives moderately and creates the avenue to become
wealthier in the future. Why don’t we act now by increasing our ability and
willingness to take risks and subsequently increase our propensity to become
wealthier? It’s never too late – the time is always right to do the right thing.
Don’t procrastinate.

By
Ahmed O.  Banu.