UMYU Law Journal

Combating Money Laundering in the United States: The Recent Development

2024-06-25T08:48:11+00:00

Rapid globalisation has created a borderless economy in the world. Thus, the need for comprehensive legislation becomes paramount to curtail the efforts of money launderers and other entities financing terrorism in and outside national borders. Although the United States of America have been enacting legislation to tackle illicit flows of proceeds of crime and have created a substantial legal framework, the laws are not enough to completely curtail money laundering. Recently, sophisticated techniques adopted by money launderers necessitated amendments to the anti-money laundering laws. Accordingly, the United States has enacted Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) 2020, which amends Bank Secrecy Act 1976 to address the illicit advancements made by money launderers robustly. The Objective of the study is to highlight the recent development in the United States' effort in
combating money laundering. The paper does this by first tracing the incremental development of the United States anti-money laundering laws. It then discusses the reforms AMLA 2020 made to the anti-money laundering laws. The paper adopts a doctrinal
approach using the pure qualitative research method. The paper finds that AMLA 2020 significantly reformed anti-money laundering laws in the United States. However, more needs to be done to combat money laundering effectively. Therefore, the paper recommends that the United States enact unexplained wealth order law to complement the law enforcement efforts in deploying asset forfeiture laws to forfeit to the government laundered proceeds of crime from criminals.

Money in Flame: An Appraisal of the Legal Framework on Gas Flaring in Nigeria

2024-05-13T10:21:05+00:00

Gas flaring and venting is the burning of associated gas that accompanies the extraction of crude oil wells during exploration. Gas flaring is not only waste a potentially valuable source of energy (natural gas), it also adds significantly carbon emission in the
atmosphere causing local pollution a contributing factor to climate change and global warming. Nigeria has been on the forefront of both polluting the environment, by virtue of being one of the largest gas flaring country as well as experiencing a full-blown energy crises in spite of its abundant gas resources. Nigeria is an active party to multiple international and regional conventions, it has acceded and ratified for the control of atmospheric pollution generally and gas flaring in particular. This paper therefore, seeks to investigate the reasons for the continuous gas flaring, despite the efforts of the Government towards ending gas flaring. It highlights the associated environmental and socio-economic issues and reviews some of the legal and institutional frameworks under which gas is flared. Using doctrinal methodology, the study found that the laws are too many and ineffective and that the regulatory institutions lack the necessary authority for their enforcement. The paper situates Nigeria as still struggling to put in place effective legal framework for the control of gas flaring. Its concludes that, sustainable utilization of flare gas could yield tremendous economic and environmental benefits for the host communities as well as save the country the billions of dollars lost annually through flaring of gas that could be utilise for commercial use. It finally recommend the international best practices for control of gas flaring through implementation of effective measures both regulatory and non-regulatory capable of controlling gas flaring and maximising economic recovery of the Nigeria gas reserves and reducing greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission.

Awareness of Right to Maintenance of Wife in Islamic Law: A Study of Kaduna North Local Government, Kaduna State, Nigeria

2024-07-29T08:23:22+00:00

Islamic law imposes an obligation on the husband to maintain his wife. The obligation arises as soon as the valid marriage contract is completed. This article seeks to examine the provisions of Islamic law on the rights of wife to maintenance as well as the extent of awareness of duty of maintenance of wife applicable in Kaduna North Local Government, Kaduna State. Maintenance to the wife also means the fulfillment of the wifes need in her life. This consists of food, cloth, shelter and other necessaries. These are the wifes rights on her husband. Even if the wife is wealthy. The analysis shows that few of the respondents are aware of the rights to maintenance of wife in Islamic law in Kaduna North Local Government, Kaduna State. It also shows that few read the Quran in order to know the rights to maintenance of wives under Islamic law. The paper therefore strongly suggests that Islamic preachers have a greater role to play in creating awareness on the right of maintenance of wife in Islamic law in Kaduna North Local Government. The people should read the provision of the glorious Quran on maintenance of wife and follow the interpretations of those verses as provided by Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W).

An Appraisal of the Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Women Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights in Nigeria: Strengthening the Regulations on Human Rights Protection

2024-05-28T08:07:10+00:00

Among the increasing frequent acts of violations over the past decades has been on the health rights of women. The question on women reproductive and sexual health rights has remained the most intractable issues in Nigeria and around the globe. To this effect, this study analyzes the current development and legislations on women reproductive and sexual health rights in the wake of corona virus pandemic in Nigeria. This is with the objective of examining the impact of corona virus pandemic on women reproductive and sexual health rights in Nigeria. The researchers adopted a doctrinal approach which focuses principally
on the current legislations and policies on women reproductive and sexual health in Nigeria and other jurisdictions. Amongst other things, it is argued that while corona virus pandemic receives global attention and support, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights of women in Nigeria is yet to be systematically included in global and national efforts to reducing disaster risks and these has remained a critical gap. This paper also revealed that in situations of disasters, women and girls are often mostly affected and their reproductive and sexual health needs are neglected and marginalized. Basically, necessary recommendations are made while the study concludes that the essence of re-examining the reproductive and sexual health rights of women in Nigeria is to ensure that there is adequate protection of reproductive and sexual health rights of women and girls in the wake of corona virus pandemic and also for government at all levels to integrate sexual and reproductive health rights into national, regional or global disaster risk reduction and management.

State Sovereignty and International Protection of Human Rights: The Way Forward

2024-04-16T13:03:17+00:00

The concepts of human rights and national sovereignty in the 21stcentury social-political system appear to be antithetical to each other. The co-existence of the two has not been easy particularly in a sovereign State that blatantly violates the rights of her people. In that situation, the two principles have confronted rather than partnered in the sense that any promotion of universal Human Rights by the international community is seen as a restraint on State sovereignty leaving the individual whose rights are violated to suffer. In this regard, this article will discuss the differences between the two concepts, the impact of State sovereignty on the protection of human rights in both Nigeria and United Kingdom, and fashion out a substantial degree of symbiotic relationship that will be of benefit not only to nation-state but also to individual.
Keywords: Human Rights; State Sovereignty; International law; Domestic Law

Review of the National Senior Citizens Centre Act of 2018

2024-04-22T12:53:11+00:00

This paper reviewed the National Senior Citizens Act of 2018. Under t his Act, the National Senior Citizens Centre was established to cater for the needs of senior citizens in Nigeria. The Act aims to facilitate the implementation of Section 16 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN) 1999 (as amended) which declares that Nigeria shall direct its policy towards ensuring the care of aged persons. The objective of this review is to identify some of the challenges that hinder the implementation of the Act. Using the doctrinal method, it is argued that the Act does not make adequate provision on how to cater to the need of the senior citizens, to provide adequate health and social services. It is also noted that the act fixed the Senior Citizens' Aged at 70 without regard to the retirement age, pension rights and their financial status. The paper compared the Act with policy or legislation of India, Ghana, South Africa and Brazil with the view of learning some lessons from their frameworks. Some of the lessons include the provision of clear implementation guidelines similar to Ghana, in India, a senior citizen is a person
who is 60 years and above. The paper finds a myriad of challenges affecting the implementation of the Act which include funding and lack of clear implementation plan. The paper recommends, amongst others, that there should be more funding and clear provision for the nature of the healthcare services to be enjoyed by the senior citizens

The Constitutional Obligations of States to Fight Corruption in Nigeria: Kano State as a Role Model

2024-04-19T11:13:49+00:00

Corruption simply connotes the abuse of public office for personal befits and enrichment. The violation of formal rules relating to the allocation of public resources by public officials for personal financial gains or political support is also corruption. It is the biggest problem that undermines development of nations. In Nigeria Corruption is institutionalised, systemic and endemic. Several Committees set up on tackling corruption have proffered solutions but corruption keeps increasing and taking many forms. The need to address corruption and corrupt practices has featured in several provisions of the 1999 Constitution. Specifically, the Constitution mandates the Federal and States governments to strive to expose and abolish corruption and corrupt practices. The federal government drive in the fight against corruption is obvious. The paper doctrinally assesses the constitutional obligations of the federal government and the component states for fighting corruption. The findings reveal that out of the thirty-six States of the Federation however, only Kano State established an independent anti-corruption agency that has helped in curbing corruption, abuse of office or power and inefficiency in managing public funds. In view of the constitutional obligation of States for abolishing all corrupt practices and in order to complement the efforts of the Federal government led war on corruption, this paper recommends other States of the Federation to replicate the Kano State Model anti-corruption agency. This is not only necessary but desirable The other states' rediness to etiestablish similar agency will assist in combating corruption, ensuring public accountability, minimisation of waste and provisions of public good in their constituencies and Nigeria at large.

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and Islamic Law: Any Meeting Point?

2024-04-22T09:15:33+00:00

Women constitute more than half of the world's population yet categorized as one of the vulnerable groups. Protection of women therefore means protection of a greater part of the human race. The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the United Nations in order to provide special protection for women against discrimination and all forms of abuse. The Convention is categorized as one of the UN Conventions that has enjoyed the highest ratification in UN history. Islamic law has equally provided protection for women against discrimination and all forms of abuse. Islam came at a time when women were regards as chattels in most parts of the world. Islamic law placed them on the same footing with men, gave them the right to own property and prohibited all forms of discrimination against them. Clearly,
both regimes aim to protect women, however certain areas of disagreement has forced several Muslim nations to tender reservation on some articles of the Convention. Reconciliation of these conflicts will no doubt add to the level of protection to be enjoyed by women. This paper therefore intends to examine the Convention, look at its areas of similarities and differences with Islamic law and suggests ways to reconcile the differences. A doctrinal methodology was adopted in arriving at the findings of this paper. The paper provided the Islamic insights to the protection against of the discrimination of the women folk. The paper, adopted desk review of secondary data in arriving at the research.

Equilibrating the Organic Fluidity of Customary Law Arbitration and the Rigidity of Judicial Precedent

2024-04-22T10:35:14+00:00

Customary arbitration is about the most utilized mode of arbitration in Nigeria. However, in recent times, resort to customary law arbitration has been on the decline. While the courts to a large degree have contributed to the development of customary law arbitration in Nigeria, this article argues that the application of some aspects of the validity parameters set by the courts and reinforced overtime in line with the doctrine of stare decisisi have to a large extent contributed to the stultification of the growth of customary law arbitration. In providing a comprehensive insight into the underlying challenges, the paper draws from some selected landmark case law and questions the propriety of judicial legislation with specific regards to customary law. The paper concludes that while it is imperative to ensure predictability and certainty in the law and practice of customary law arbitration, these qualities would be better secured if the inherent organic nature of the Nigerian customary law is retained.

Enforcement of Insider Trading Regulations: Comparative Analysis of Nigeria and Australia

2024-04-22T11:30:32+00:00

Insider trading remained a problem in the Nigerian Stock markets. The recent probe of the collapse of the Nigerian capital market by the National Assembly of Nigeria has helped to identify Insider trading as being amongst the major causes of the near collapse of Nigeria's equity capital market. Despites the efforts being made by Nigeria's Authority to combat the menace through regulations, enforcement has been identified as one of the major impediments to effective enforcement of insider trading regulations in Nigeria. This paper will primarily address the issue of enforcement of insider trading regulation in Nigeria. By way of comparison the paper will frequently refer to the Australian experience because Australiais one of the few countries in the world that has stringent insider trading law and stronger enforcement. The successful track record of the Australian regulatory
framework therefore demands a comparative analysis. This is done with a view to investigating lessons that might be learnt or adopted from Australia. The research is anchored on primary and secondary source materials. The study contends that having the
best insider trading laws on paper alone will not cure the insider trading problem. What is required is the effective enforcement of the laws in Nigeria.

Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters in Nigeria and the Role of the Attorney General of the Federation

2024-04-22T13:11:14+00:00

Mutual assistance is a mechanism of cooperation in criminal matters whereby states cooperate with one another in order to obtain the evidence required for criminal investigations and prosecutions. It is a process by which states seek and provide assistance in gathering evidence for use in criminal cases. It is sometimes described as pursuing the evidence mechanism of cooperation in criminal matters. This paper examines the specific role of the Attorney General of the Federation as the statutory actor in the implementation of laws and policies in mutual assistance in criminal matter especially within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sub-region. The paper finds specifically that non-domestication of the treaty on this subject matter; language barrier and some procedural matters hinder the effective realization of mutual assistance within the
ECOWAS sub-region. Consequently, the paper recommends the urgent need for the domestication of the ECOWAS Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters. The paper adopted as methodology the doctrinal approach which entails the use of relevant literature including international instruments, reports and general comments/recommendations.

An Assessment of Making a Case for Civil Asset Forfeiture Law in Nigeria

2024-04-22T14:13:40+00:00

Asset forfeiture otherwise called asset confiscation is the seizure of asset of persons who have been tried and convicted of corrupt enrichment and/or other financial crimes. However, the legal huddles inherent in the trial and conviction of such persons accused of corruption and other financial malfeasances, the financial implication involved, including appeals and further appeals up to the Supreme Court makes the entire process distasteful. The non conviction based asset forfeiture, as a routine punishment, is aimed at confiscating the proceeds or instruments of crime. The trial takes the form of civil litigation with the main aim of obtaining a court order nisi, and where the defendant fails to satisfy the court as to the source(s) of his wealth, the court makes an order absolute thus forfeiting the asset of the defendant to the Government in a civil trial. In the United Kingdom, for instance, asset forfeiture proceedings are initiated under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The aim of this research is to, inter alia, make a case for the enactment of a civil Asset Forfeiture Law in Nigeria in order the strengthen the provisions of the Constitution dealing with nonconviction based forfeiture; to aid the activities of anti-graft and other security agencies in the fight against corruption and other financial crimes. The researchers make use of the doctrinal or library-based method of research, therefore, references will be made to both primary and secondary sources of information such as Statutes and other scholarly works. It is the finding of this research that Nigeria does not have a solid legal framework for nonconviction based asset forfeiture law. It is therefore recommended that legislative and institutional reforms be made to strengthen the governments' mandate in fighting
corruption, and what better way of achieving this than by introducing a law on civil asset forfeiture.

An Examination on the Process of Arbitration and Conciliation in Nigeria

2024-04-25T08:19:34+00:00

Disputes are inevitable in the business world. No matter the dispute some business partners need to find a way of resolving it as well as preserving their long time business relationship. The best way to do that is to use any of the Alternative Dispute Resolution
(ADR) Processes. Conciliation and arbitration are two ADR processes that have been codified in Nigeria under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act Cap 19Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990. Most people resort to court litigation instead of using any of the ADR processes. This write up aimed at providing a guide to understanding and using arbitration and conciliation in resolving dispute and also make recommendations on making it accessible to majority of our businessmen and women. The paper applies the doctrinal method of legal research.

An Evaluation of the Doctrine of Privity of Contract in Nigeria

2024-05-10T07:52:13+00:00

A contract is a private relationship between the parties who make it, and no other person can acquire rights or incur liabilities under it. Therefore, a person seeking to sue upon a contract must satisfy the court that, he is a party to the contract and that he has given consideration for the promise he seeks to enforce or that the contract is under seal. The objective of this paper is to examine the doctrine of privity of contract. The researcher adopted the doctrinal method of research. In this paper, it was found that, any person who intends to enforce a contract must show that he gave consideration and that he is a party to that contract. The paper also found that, as social or economic necessity invites some new extension of the principle of insurance, the rule may disappoint reasonable expectation of the parties. The paper recommends that, statutes passed to redress grievance should not be isolated in order not to render their operation uncertain. This is because some Acts passed to redress grievance, have been isolated exceptions to the general rule of the common law, thus rendering its operation uncertain. The paper concludes that, the effect of the doctrine of privity of contract may well be salutary and in some circumstances may prove inconvenient or even unjust.

An Appraisal of Corporate Investment Mechanisms Under the Nigerian Law

2024-05-10T08:19:49+00:00

Undoubtedly, the economic situation of a country in addition to the line of business a company engages goes a long way to determine its corporate viability. When a company is in need of funds, it usually calls for public subscription of its shares, which funds it uses as capital. It then carries out its business and pays the profit in form of dividends to the investors who are known as the shareholders. Consequently, a dominant feature in developed economies is the simplified and flexible processes of incorporation and management of corporate entities which underscores the importance of creating an atmosphere that promotes ease of doing business and means of making strategic investments. It is for this reasons that the significance of the new Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020 "(CAMA)" cannot be gain said. CAMA 2020 which repealed the Companies and Allied Matters Act 1990 introduced essential reforms in the regime of corporate investments which are geared towards whittling down regulatory hurdles in the corporate sector that will in turn boost local and foreign investments in Nigeria. It is noteworthy that a company is by law empowered to raise money for its undertakings, by either selling its shares or by direct debt finance, which is by approaching the financial institutions for loans to pursue its business plans mostly inform of debentures. The purpose
of this paper is to examine the nature of corporate securities and legal regime of the various corporate investment mechanisms under the Nigeria law with a view to ascertain the current practices under the new law. The paper found that despite the seeming reform by the new CAMA, the 100% automation of the Corporate Affairs Commission processes in company registration in the face of the constant network challenges, and the increment of the minimum share capital thresholds in registering companies are clog in the wheel of ease of doing business and hence this paper recommend the reduction of same. It uses the black letter approach, relying particularly on the relevant provisions of the Companies and Allied Matters Act CAMA 2020, the Investment and Securities Act 2007 and decided judicial authorities.