THREAT TO LIFE: WHAT YOU MUST KNOW
Empero Ogbonna
If you tell someone orally that you will kill him, it is not an offence.
However, if the person who is issuing the threat has a weapon in his hand to effect the threat, then the offence of threatening violence is committed.
There must be a weapon within the apprehension of the person issuing the threat, for the law to take it that the life of the other person is threatened.
Read also:
BAD NEWS FOR TENANTS? – THE NEW INTERESTING POSITION OF THE LAW
See the case of Ezeadukwa Vs Maduka (1997) 8 NWLR PT 518 page 635 @ 641
Thus, if I am quarrelling with you and I tell you that I will kill you, I have committed no offence.
The only remedy you have against me at that point is to file a suit under the Fundamental right Enforcement Procedure Rules 2009 and enforce your right to life under Section 33 of the Constitution. There you still need to establish to the court that I have an immediate means of killing you. A mere vulgar threat of an oral nature without more cannot sustain an action under Section 33 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
See Uzoukwu Vs. Ezeonu (1991) 6NWLR (PT 200) 708 .
Also, if the threat to kill is in writing, it is a big offence under Section 323 of the Criminal Code Law of the Southern States of Nigeria which attracts a jail term of seven years.
For this crime to be committed, the threat to kill must be in writing
So in the absence of writing or exhibition of weapon or material capable of effecting the murder or killing, mere oral threat to kill is nothing.
In Nigeria, there is a tendency of the police to arrest people for threat to life especially when the complainant has nothing tangible against the accused person. This must stop.
If you don’t have anything tangible, let the matter go”
Emperor is an Aba – based Legal Practitioner
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