It is pertinent to examine the stance of the law concerning confession.
Many Nigerians has been sentenced without a proper investigation as regard any crime committed, however i took it as a burden upon my honorable self to explain in details what “confession” is all about.
Confession can be simply defined as a VOLUNTARY statement made out at any time by a person charged with the commission of a crime and communicated to another, stating or acknowledging that he committed the alleged crime as defined by the court in the case of Yakubu v. State.
Section 29(2)(a)-(b) of the Evidence Act 2011.
Please take note of the VOLUNTARINESS. which means, for a confession to be admissible before any judicial proceedings, it must first off conform to voluntariness.
Before a statement can have a valid key to be a confession, a crime first of all must have been committed, and not just crime, the person charges upon such crime must be the real committer of such crime, it is important that a crime had been committed first, and it is the same crime that the accused is charged with, or intended to be charged with.
Now, after giving out reasons before a statement can leads to confession.
Such statements being given must conform to certain guides, without these guides, any confessional statements made out of these guides, such statements cannot be admissible in the court of law.
And these are:
1. Such statements must be unequivocal
2. Must be Direct
3. Must be positive
4. Must be adverse to the interest of the maker.
Any of these four guides must not escape a confessional statement, that is to say, before a confessional statement can have it’s validity, none of these four should be missing.
And the last is so much important, a confessional statement must be opposite interest of the maker, that is, it must not be in favor of the maker.
A confessional statement could be made at any time in so far as it is voluntarily made; hence, voluntariness of the statement is a precondition for the validity and admissibility of a confession as seen in Section 29(2)(a)-(b) of the Evidence Act 2011.
It should be noted that, for a confessional statement to be relevant and admissible, whatever means or method it was obtained from the accused person(s) is immaterial so far it was voluntarily made by the accused person. Thus, the promise of secrecy in Section 31 of the Evidence Act 2011 does not affect the admissibility of a confession made by the accused to a prison cell, as reasoned in the case of Igbinovia v. State, where the appellant while in custody confessed to the murder of the taxi driver to a disguised police officer in the cell and was convicted on the confession. The Supreme Court in dismissing the appeal held that the confessional statement was admissible since it is relevant to the issue and was voluntarily made.
The police cannot force you to write down a confessional statement, whenever the act of force is included, then such statement cannot be admissible in the court of law.
By Gambari ayomide enitan.
Lagos State University.

OP please push this to the front page for Nigerians to know their Rights.

nice read

but naija police only know torture