“Mr Obi argued that he, having been acquitted, ought to have been discharged in accordance with Section 62 of the Jury Act (cap. 90 in the 1958 Laws of the Federation), which provides that- “62. If the jury find the accused person not guilty he shall be immediately discharged from custody on that indictment.” That is similar to Section 246 of the Criminal Procedure Act (cap. 43), which provides that- “246. If the Court finds the accused not guilty the accused shall forthwith be discharged and an order of acquittal recorded.” That is the general rule, which does not derogate from the special provisions of Section 230 of the Criminal Procedure Act; for the sake of Mr Obi’s argument we cite Section 230 together with Section 229: “229. Whenever any person is acquitted upon the ground that at the time at which he is alleged to have committed an offence he was by reason of unsoundness of mind incapable of knowing the nature of the act alleged as constituting the offence or that it was wrong or contrary to law, the finding shall state specifically whether he committed the act or not.” “230(1) Whenever the finding states that the accused person committed the act alleged, the Court before which the trial has been held shall, if such act would but for incapacity found have constituted an offence, order such person to be kept in safe custody in such place and manner as the Court thinks fit and shall report the case for the order of the President. (2) The President may order such person to be confined in a lunatic asylum, prison or other suitable place of safe custody during the pleasure of the President.” We have to stress in subsection (1) of that Section 230 the words “if such act would but for incapacity found have constituted an offence”, where the word ‘incapacity’, read with Section 28 of the Criminal Code, is wide enough to include all the three cases of incapacity stated in this Section 28, namely (1) the defendant’s incapacity to understand what he is doing, or (2) his incapacity to control his actions, or (3) his incapacity to know that he ought not to do the act or make the omission. Anyone of those incapacities, if due to mental disease or natural mental infirmity, is enough for the defence of insanity which exonerates the defendant under the said Section 28; and Mr Obi told us that his defence at the trial was that the defendant was deprived of capacity to control his actions owing to natural mental infirmity.”

Per VAHE ROBERT BAIRAMIAN, JSC in Adams v DPP of the Federation (1966) LCER-386(SC) (Pp 3 – 5 Paras C – C) #