'The Monster of False Accusation' By Ademola Adewale

THE PROFESSOR’S PODIUM


Quite a number of legal practitioners must be familiar with any or all of the following true life scenarios:

* Two persons were struggling over the ownership of a parcel of land, each claiming to have bought from different landlords, each set of landlord claiming title to the land from time immemorial. While one of the competing buyers believed in the due process of law by filing a case in court to establish his ownership, the other party was more street wise and lodged a complaint of threat to life against his opponent. The otherwise non-performing Nigeria Police buoyed by a bogus complaint and a little elbow greasing by Mr. Street Wise Complainant, sprang into action arresting Mr. Due Process and charged him to court. Thus, it became difficult for him to maintain a civil suit against Mr. Street Wise Complainant unless Mr. Due Process can flex superior police muscle against him.

* Two individuals were engaged in the business of supplying various goods to third parties for a commission. Things went on smoothly for a while between Mr. Supplier and Mr. Agent until Mr. Agent became evasive and started to play hide and seek. When Mr. Supplier was not getting his money, he got frustrated and threatened to call in the police. He simply played into the hands of Mr. Agent who promptly reported a case of threat to life against him. The police sprang to life, arresting, detaining and charging Mr. Supplier to court for threat to life. So the hunter becomes the hunted and Mr. Supplier becomes too busy fighting for his liberty to be able to demand for money for goods supplied. In one real-life scenario, Mr. Supplier in fact reported Mr. Agent’s actions to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), but EFCC’s gestapo-like actions only provided necessary ammunition to the fraudulent Mr. Agent who reported the EFCC’s activities as that of assassins who paid an unsuccessful visit to him at home.

* An employee left his one man employer unceremoniously. Mr. Employer was unwilling for employee to leave, so he lodged a false complaint of theft against employee with the police, who upon being properly mobilised sprang immediately into action, arresting, detaining and charging employee for stealing. Alternatively, Mr. Employer was unwilling to pay off employee. The persistent visit of employee to demand for his benefits was reported by Mr. Employer to the police as threat to life. Employee was arrested and had to contend not only with unpaid arrears of salary and benefits but also of criminal prosecution for threat to life.

* Two members of a local union vied for the juicy office of chairman and none was ready to give an inch or quarter to the other. Indeed, rather than do that, the smarter of the two lodged a complaint of threat to life against the opponent and the opponent’s retinue of hangers on readily provide evidence of hoodlums and assassins allegedly monitoring Mr. Complainant to eliminate him. The police with the necessary encouragement showed that they were not as weak as was generally believed or misconceived. So, Mr. Opponent and his supporters spent some months in and out of the police station till when elections took place giving Mr. Complainant the necessary edge to ‘win the election’ into the office of the chairman of the union.

The above scenarios are daily relived by thousands of Nigerians, and there must be very few lawyers ignorant of the monster of false accusation and the use to which it is put by dubious and mischievous complainants. Yet, there is little legal restraint for now on the activities of the growing army of arresters and blackmailers called complainants. Worried by this trend, I sought to conduct personal research into this area of the law and at the end of which enterprise I made the following observations:

1. The law on false accusation and giving false information to the police is woefully inadequate. In a 521 criminal offences code, only two sections deal with the making of false accusation and giving false information. See sections 125 and 126 of the Criminal Code.
While Section 125 deals with conspiracy to bring false accusation, Section 125A deals with making false statement. The latter provides a punishment of imprisonment for life if the offence for which the victim was accused would have attracted death or life imprisonment.
If the offence for which the victim would have been guilty is less than an offence attracting life imprisonment, fourteen years.
In any other case, the false accuser will get a maximum sentence of seven years. In the case of Section 125A (1)(b) which deals with the substantive offence, false accusation, the maximum sentence for the false accuser is one year.

2. It now became clear to me why the offence of false accusation has become rampant. It is only the conspiracy for the offence that is severely punished but the substantive offence gets a mere slap on the wrist - one year. Since the instances of the conspiracy to give false accusation is not common but the substantive itself, no wonder the spectacle of false accusation is spreading like wild fire with the active support of the police. Innocent citizens are being harassed by other criminally minded citizens to give up legitimate claims on the pains of arrest, detention and malicious prosecution for bogus offences, particularly the claim of threat to life. Both our National and State Assemblies ought to rise to the occasion by providing for stiffer penalties for any one found to have given false information or accused others falsely.
This is certainly a worthwhile exercise in constitutional law making than legislating on the so-called sexual harassment and indecent dressing bill.
The monster of false accusation needs to be tamed promptly; legislatively and through other legal means.