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Although, in civil matters, the appellants are at liberty to file a joint notice of appeal, the filing of a joint notice of appeal is not allowed in criminal matters. A joint notice of appeal filed in criminal matters will be incurably defective and incompetent, this is so because it will complicate the appeal and imply that the appellant is inviting the appellate court to determine the rights of the co-accused as well. A court is bound to strike out such notice of appeal even without inviting counsel to address the court on the issue and such will not occasion a miscarriage of justice. This is because any appeal originated without following the rules of court is incompetent. In this case, the failure of the respondent to include names of his co-accused as respondents on the notice of appeal was not an irregularity and it did not affect the merits of the appeal as constituted at the Court of Appeal.

Whether it is Mandatory in Criminal Appeals to Include the Names of Co-accused in a Notice of Appeal:

In criminal appeals, it is not mandatory for an appellant to include the names of co-accused at the trial court in his notice of appeal, if those co-accused are not affected by the appeal. The Court of Appeal Rules generally outline the requirements for a notice of appeal, which center on the appellant and the judgment. It is therefore not necessary for an appellant to endorse his co-accused as part of the parties to the appeal when the appeal is for himself only. The rules do not impose a mandate on a sole appellant to include his co-accused, this is because it implies that the lower court was being invited to determine the rights or involvement of other defendants in the appeal filed thereat. Conversely, if a co-accused is not appealing, or has been acquitted, or their case is entirely distinct from the appellant’s grounds of appeal, there is no legal or procedural requirement to name them in the notice of appeal. Therefore, including unaffected parties would be superfluous and could potentially complicate the appeal process by introducing irrelevant details.

The Individualised or Personalised Nature of Criminal Appeals:

The entire gamut of a criminal appeal is individualised or personalised. Sections 27 of the Court of Appeal Act and 30 of the Supreme Court Act emphasize the appellant’s right to be present during the hearing of his criminal appeal which further emphasized the personalised nature of the appeal process. The focus is on the individual appellant’s rights and his challenge to the judgment or ruling. Therefore, an appellant’s notice of appeal should primarily concern himself and the respondent, without necessarily listing co-accused who are not parties to the specific appeal being filed. The attitude of appellate court to an appellant’s brief which proffers argument in respect of a co-accused who has a separate appeal is one of displeasure. The appeal of a co-accused even, where they exist, are treated distinctly thereby reinforcing the idea that an appellant’s appeal is personal. The appellate court’s jurisdiction is invoked by the appellant to review the decision affecting him, not to re-litigate the entire trial involving all original parties.

The method of filing notices of criminal appeals in the Court of Appeal is provided for under Order 17, rules 1-5, part 3 of Court of Appeal Rules 2021. Order 17, rule 1 states that the order shall apply to appeals to the court from any court or tribunal acting either in its original or appellate jurisdiction in criminal cases, other than a Court Martial, and to matters related thereto. Order 17, rules 2 to 5 allow individuals who are aggrieved by the judgment of the trial court to file notice of appeal or any other application and sign same either personally or by a legal representative. It does not require that all the defendants at the court must be listed as appellants or respondents as the case may be on the notice of appeal.

How Right of Appeal is Exercised in Criminal Matters at the Court of Appeal:

By provision of Order 17, rules 1-5 of the Court of Appeal Rules, 2021, a right of appeal is exercised individually by the appellant, even where the appellant is tried along with other persons. Order 17 rules 2 to 5 allow individuals who are aggrieved by the judgment of the trial court to file the Notice of Appeal or any other application and sign same either personally or by a legal representative. It does not require that all the defendants at the trial court must be listed as appellants or respondents as the case may be on the notice of appeal.

The Nature of Appeal and What a Rehearing of Appeal Entails:

All appeals shall be by way of rehearing. A rehearing is a review of the judgment as it pertains to the specific appellant and his challenge to the findings or sentence against him. A rehearing is distinct from a retrial, in the sense that it is not a retrial of all parties involved in the original case.

The Power of Chief Judge of Federal High Court to Make Rules:

By section 254 of the Constitution of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court is empowered, subject to the provisions of any Act of the National Assembly, to make rules regulating the practice and procedure of the Federal High Court.

The Presumption of Regularity of Official and Judicial Acts:

By virtue of section 168 (1) of Evidence Act, when any judicial or official act is shown to have been done in a manner substantially regular, it is presumed that formal requisites for its validity were complied with. This is enshrined in the Latin maxim ‘omnia praesumuntur rite esse acta donec probetur in contrarium, which means that all acts are presumed to have been done rightly and regularly until the contrary is proved. It is a rebuttable presumption that holds true unless sufficient evidence is presented to prove otherwise. This provision is crucial for the efficient functioning of the legal and administrative systems. It relieves parties from the onerous burden of proving every minute detail of procedural compliance for acts performed by public officials or judicial bodies, thereby fostering public confidence in the integrity of such processes. For instance, if a court order is issued or the court performs its administrative functions, it is presumed that all necessary procedural steps were observed, unless evidence to the contrary is adduced. In the instant case, the respondent failed to prove that the Chief Judge did not comply with the formal requirements within 3 days before the matter was transferred to Abuja. The Court of Appeal was therefore in error when it held that the trial court did not have jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

The Importance of Jurisdiction and How it is Conferred:

The issue of jurisdiction is critical in the hearing and determination of any case before a court. Jurisdiction is conferred on the court by statute. The court cannot gift itself jurisdiction neither can the parties confer jurisdiction on the court. When an issue of jurisdiction arises, the relevant statute must be scrutinized to determine the issue.

The Primary Purpose of a Notice of Appeal:

The primary purpose of a notice of appeal is to identify the appellant, the respondent, the decision being appealed against, and the grounds of appeal. The focus is on the appellant’s grievance with the judgment of the lower court as it relates to his individual case.

Power of Supreme Court to Formulate Issues for Determination and Basis of:

The Supreme Court is at liberty and possesses the power to accept, reject or modify all or any of the issues formulated by the parties and frame its own issues, if such issues as formulated by the parties will not lead to a proper determination of the appeal. The purpose of formulating issues for determination is to narrow the issues in controversy between the parties in the interest of accuracy, clarity and brevity to lead to more judicious and proper determination of an appeal.

POSTSCRIPT:

This case highlights the power and influence of the Court over virtually all matters as allowed or defined by law. The point to make is that the judiciary is and remains the gateway to justice through which the security agencies can and should collaborate to fight terror, crime and other criminalities. Anything short of this will amount to self-help and may actually work to defeat the purpose. Presently, Nigeria’s primary legal weapon against insecurity is the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act of 2022. This law establishes the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) under the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) to coordinate all national security responses. The framework strengthens anti-terrorism efforts through specific statutory mechanisms, such as sections 2 and 3 which empower the Federal High Court, upon an application by the Attorney-General, to declare an organisation a terrorist group. This criminalizes membership and possession of its insignia. Section 53 mandates the freezing, seizure, and forfeiture of funds or property suspected to be linked to terrorist financing. Financial institutions must report suspicious transactions immediately to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU). Section 29 permits law enforcement agencies to intercept communications, tap telephone lines, and access computer systems through an ex-parte application for approval by the Federal High Court to balance state security with privacy rights. In appropriate situations, cases like that of FRN v Jokolo should serve to guide us on how to deploy judicial power in the fight against crime and criminals.

So much noise lately about the black man’s vanishing culture of respect. Several years ago, I arrived at my child’s primary school graduation ceremony with the swag of a father who has crossed a milestone. Everywhere was filled up; there was no space in the hall again. I moved to the tent outside and found a chair.

I had hardly sat down when a child showed up. He would be about seven years old. The little boy looked at me, stood beside me but I did not know why. Then he went away. Minutes later, the boy returned with a man who introduced himself as his father. The man asked me to get off the seat because, he claimed, his child was the one occupying it before I came. Meanwhile, it was a vacant seat I met.

I was alarmed! I asked if he actually meant that I should get up for the little boy to sit and he answered yes. I was new in that culture. You remember how Eddy Murphy was insulted when he said ‘Good morning my neighbours!’? So, I thought, may be here, the child is the father of all fathers.

So, I made to stand up, bewildered. Another parent sitting by asked if I had a child in the school or just accompanied another parent to the ceremony. Before I could answer him, I heard my son’s name on the megaphone. He was called forward for a prize. I told the man that it was my son they just called up to the stage.

That was when the whole matter changed. Virtually everyone around stood up to the unruly father who asked me to vacate the chair for his seven-year-old boy. It was not a nice spectacle as the crowd made him go away with his boy. And while leaving, he did not forget to tell us all that his child had the right to the seat being the first person to occupy it!

At his age, I had already been taught to give up my seat for an elderly person who could not find one. Even now, I would do the same. But there I was, a father being asked by another father to vacate my seat for his seven-year-old son.

We ignore a lot of our values because of ‘human rights’, ‘equality; and many of the newly introduced concepts that run contrary to our upbringing as Africans! A man, who ordinarily should stand up for me to sit was the one asking me to vacate a seat for a child because the child occupied the space before my arrival!

And to show that the man was not ignorant of the African concept of respect for age, he tried to impose the same principle he flagrantly betrayed in the case of his child, months later in a corporate environment.

He showed up in the customer care of the unit of the company where I was working then. There were a lot of customers that day because of a fibre optic cable that was vandalised along the Benin-Warri Expressway the previous day.

Scanning through the crowd, the same man insisted that the elderly must be attended to first. The other customers would not have that. The place became rowdy. My attention was called and when I got to the customer care unit, I instantly recognised him. What I did next shocked everybody.

I calmly asked everyone to queue up according to their time of arrival. They did. I asked the head of the unit to assign a customer care representative to attend to the elderly. I went to the queue, picked the elderly and left him on the queue.

When he protested, I asked if he could not recognise me. He said no. Then, in the presence of everybody, I relayed the graduation ceremony encounter. I told him to always stand by his principle of human rights, by respecting the rights of others to be attended to for coming earlier irrespective of the ages of those who also need the same service.

As I turned to go, the man pulled me back. He apologised for what happened that day. He added that he actually came back to look for me to apologise but he could not find me in the crowd. Case closed! Lesson learnt! I thereafter asked him to join the other elderly fellows. He looked sober. That was all I needed!

Yoruba culture has four philosophical concepts relating to child upbringing

The first is a child known as Àbíìk?´. What this simply means is a child that lacks proper and complete parental training from the cradle. An Àbíìk?´ becomes a nuisance to his society not due to any fault of his but because he did not get the proper home training from his parents or guardians as the case may be.

When an Àbíìk?´ misbehaves, the society looks back at his upbringing and places the blame squarely on the parents or the adults who failed to teach the child the rudiments of good behaviour and communal living.

Next is an Àk?´ìgbà. This is the taxonomy for a child that was taught all the basic values of good behaviour but chooses to be impervious to all good manners. An Àk?´ìgbà is a problem-child; the type who though was taught, refused all corrections aimed at making him a good member of the society,

When an Àk?´ìgbà displays his character, the society shows sympathy to his parents or guardians. Nobody blames the parents or guardians for the outward displays of such a recalcitrant child. Most often than not, an Àk?´ìgbà comes from homes where there are disciplined children, either as older or younger siblings. Such a pàpànlagi omo (good-for-nothing child) is more of a disgrace to himself than to the parents or guardians who did all they could to make him a well-behaved child.

The third of the grouping is an Àk?´gbàgbé child. This type was well trained by the parents or guardians, absorbed the training but once in a while temporarily forgets his upbringing and veers off the acceptable norms of the society. The difference between an Àk?´gbàgbé child and the first two categories is that once an Àk?´gbàgbé is scolded, he makes immediate amends.

The elders, while reminding Àk?´gbàgbé of his background, are also conscious of the company the child keeps. And in most cases, an Àk?´gbàgbé child misbehaves because of peer group influence. Hence, the elders caution him to always remember that a bad company corrupts good manners (egbé búburú máa n ba ìwà rere jé).

The Yoruba collective noun for the three types above is either omojátijàti (irredeemably useless child) or omokómo (any-how-child or unruly child). No parent wants to have any of these three types of children. This is why parents pray to the cosmic to give them the fourth type; ?m?lúwàbí.

Who is an ?m?lúwàbí in the Yoruba concepts of child upbringing?

Morunmubo Deborah Ogungbona of the Department of English, School of Languages, Adeyemi Federal University of Education, Ondo, gives an apt definition of the concept in her ‘The Omoluwabi Concept of Yoruba Ethnic Group: A Review of the Challenge of New Generation of Yoruba Children College’ (2024), thus:

‘The Omoluwabi Concept is a mantra perpetuated by the Yoruba ethnic group in Nigeria. Although there are various definitions by different scholars about who an omoluwabi is, the common denominator is that similar virtues like Oro siso (Spoken word), Iteriba (Respect), Otito (Truth) Iwa rere (good character), Akinkanju (Bravery), Ise asekara (Hardwork), Opolo Pipe (Intelligence), among others, are reiterated by these different scholars about what makes a Yoruba man or woman an omoluwabi.’

She goes further to cite the Wikipedia definition of the concept as follows:

‘The Omoluabi concept is a philosophical and cultural concept that is native to the Yoruba people. It is used to describe a person of good character. The Omoluabi concept signifies courage, hard work, humility and respect. An omoluabi is a person of honour who believes in hard work, respects the rights of others and gives to the community in deeds and action. Above all, an omoluabi is a person of integrity. Omoluabi translates as ‘the baby begotten by the chief of iwa’. Such a child is thought of as a paragon of excellence in character.’

The two key words in the two definitions of ?m?lúwàbí above that are relevant to the issue of the encounter between Mr. Tony Elumelu and the UBA Graduate Trainee lady last week, are ‘Ìteríba’ (Respect) and ‘humility.’

I have read a lot of comments about the encounter where the young lady addressed Mr. Elumelu by his first name and the former Chairman of the UBA responded by imposing a simple exercise in African respect on her. The question hanging in the balance is if the lady acted the way she did because of proper home training or lack of it.

Festus Adedayo and Lasisi Olagunju, two columnists with the Tribune Titles answered the question adequately in their respective columns on Sunday (Good Morning, Tony, Sunday Tribune, August 23, 2026) and on Monday (Elumelu and a bank culture gone wrong, Nigerian Tribune, August 24, 2026). My intention here is to reinforce the argument that the lady’s behaviour is due largely to the new concept of civilisation in our society today.

Truth be told; every family has a child like the UBA Graduate Trainee lady. Her behaviour has nothing, in my estimation, to do with the concepts of Àbíìk?´, Àk?´ìgbà, Àk?´gbàgbé and ?m?lúwàbí. She is just a product of the new cultural invention of ayé nyí, a ntòó (the world changes and we follow it).

The African concept of respect for elders is going to the dogs under our noses and we are helpless about it. Check our homes. How many parents scold their children when the younger ones call their older siblings by their first names? Don’t we see the act as ‘civilisation’, the àwon omo ìsinyìí (the children-of-nowadays) attitude?

How about how we share goodies among our children? Who takes first? Don’t we practice the ‘civilised’ first-come-first-served concept of equal rights while we ignore the place of seniority at home?

Does a child who calls his elder siblings by their first names need a UBA corporate equality tradition to call a 60-something-year-old man by his first name? A lot of things we ignore as new trends are coming back to hurt and haunt us. A child calling Mr. Elumelu by his first name is the least of our worries.

Look around you. How many young folks out there help the elderly with whatever items they are carrying? Market days were the worst days for us growing up. We carried loads of goods for old women returning from the markets. They needed not to be your relations. You were naturally expected to run to her, greet her and collect the load!

We got rascally at times and pretended not to see the women. But we paid for it if we were reported to our parents. Of course, those little acts of respect came with their goodies in terms of kúlíkúlí, àádùn or other edibles that children of our time fancied. There was a particular woman whose loads I always wanted to carry. She was as prayerful as she was generous!

Yet another personal encounter.

At my 50th birthday anniversary a few years ago, one of my bosses on this job, Oga Celsus Ohain, came a bit late to the small get-together organised to mark the occasion. Oga Celsus was the head of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) operations in Edo State when I was the state correspondent for the Tribune Titles between 1999 and 2004.

The party had moved past the stage of ‘toasts to the celebrant’ before Oga Celsus walked in. He had told me days before that though he had other engagements, he would honour me with his presence at the birthday party. So, when he arrived and asked to be allowed to speak, the moderator contacted me and I gave the nod.

Taking hold of the microphone, Oga Celsus gave his signature toothy smile and said that he came to the event to thank me for one thing. He told the gathering that he was sure that they must have noticed that ‘this boy, Suyi, is a stubborn boy.’ Of course, everyone chorused YES! May God forgive them!

He continued: ‘Beyond that stubbornness is a deep sense of respect for elders. When I was in practice, whenever I was late for an assignment, I was never worried about getting a seat. As long as Suyi was in attendance, it was certain that he would give up his seat for me. He did it to me many times and several other elderly people too. So, I am here to say thank you, Suyi, for the honour. May God honour you in return. Happy birthday!’

The idea of respect for elders is congenital to an average Yoruba child of my era. Call it ethnocentric, nobody teaches that in any moral classroom. Every Yoruba child grows up to notice the pattern because every member of the family practices it.

To date, there are family members that are older than me by just a few months but I dare not call them by their first names. Putting the prefixes, bùòdá or àntí is as natural as the day succeeding the night. Yes, we have a few bad elements; some that are naturally culturally rebellious. The society of our time then had its ways of handling those inconsequential few.

We can speak all the grammar in the book over the Elumelu encounter with the young lady. Until we go back to our past, we will have worse cases confronting us. It took me time to wean one of my boys off the idea of arching his finger and referring to her mother and me as ‘you people!’ There is no room for ‘civilisation’ in my home when it comes to respect for elders!

Let us raise the alarm: We are losing our values!

God bless Mr. Elumelu for that instant correction. God also bless our dear young lady for showing her proper upbringing by taking to correction. But more for me, God bless, abundantly, every parent who will make conscious efforts to instill our values into our children!