Full List of Offences in Nigeria (2024)

Infractions or Offences are either acts, behaviors and omissions that subject the person who committed them to punishment under the applicable laws of the land. Felons, misdemeanors, and simple offenses are all types of offences. A person must have committed one of the offences listed below, helped another person commit the offense, got someone else to commit the offence, or enabled the offense by not doing anything to prevent the person from committing the crime in order to be held accountable under the Criminal Code Act for any of the listed offenses.

FULL LIST OF OFFENCES IN NIGERIA (2024)

The various offenses that are punishable in Nigeria are listed in this article. For information on what they are, keep reading.

• Putting together a group of men to frighten a state governor or president.
• Collaborating with anyone to declare war against Nigeria
• A Nigerian civilian encouraging a foreigner to attack Nigeria militarily.
• The purposeful use of unconstrained measures to remove a president who is currently in office.
• The desire to remove a governor from office immediately and without cause.
• Encouraging intercommunal conflict
• Attempting to sway a police officer or member of the military from his devotion and duty.
• Attempting to inspire a police officer or member of the military to revolt.
• Attempting to organize a mutinous meeting among a group of police or military personnel.
• Assisting a foreign enemy of Nigeria who is being held as a prisoner of war in Nigeria with knowledge to escape from a jail or hiding location.
• Importing seditious or objectionable publications that are critical of a president or a governor in an effort to incite unrest, foster hatred between social classes, or influence legislation that would change a set topic.
• Committing any act with seditious intent through collaboration, effort, or execution.
• Saying seditious things.
• Administering, participating in, or giving permission for the administration of any oath that would ostensibly conduct crimes against the person.
• Being present or giving permission to take an oath obligating someone to do crimes.
• Without the president’s or a state governor’s consent, arming or training any individual or group of individuals.
• Being present while individuals are being drilled or trained to use weapons without the president or governor’s consent.
• Creating a group with the intent to wage war against the Nigerian government or its citizens in any region of the nation.
• Establishing a society with the intent to kill or hurt someone, or inciting someone or a group of people to be killed or hurt.
• Establishing a group with the intent to use violence or intimidation.
• Establishing a society with the intention of upsetting the calm or encouraging unrest in any region of Nigeria.
• Establishing a group with the goal of undermining the government or its representatives.
• Establishing a society with the intention of obstructing the legal system.
• Establishing a society that a presidential order deems hazardous to the government or any region of the nation.
• Riot
• Weapon smuggling into Nigeria.
• Keeping anyone guilty of bringing weapons into Nigeria from being arrested.
• Obtaining or recovering smuggled-in firearms.
• Carrying a weapon in public and acting so as to terrorize anyone.
• Forcing entry in a way that disturbs the tranquility.
• Engaging in combat in a public setting.
• Attempting to provoke or issuing a challenge to another person to engage in a duel.
• Attempting to incite someone to issue a dueling invitation to another person.
• Competing for a reward.
• Marketing or signing up for prize fights.
• Threatening someone with the aim of intimidating or irking them.
• Firing loaded weapons, making threats with the aim to disturb someone within a home, or engaging in any other act that disturbs the peace.
• Assembling in a group of two or more individuals for smuggling.
• Exhibiting any banner, emblem, flag, or sign that encourages hostility amongst followers of various religions or political groups in public.
• Printing a book that is inflammatory in order to break the peace.
• A public official who solicits or accepts bribes for another person or for themselves.
• A public official who consents to or tries to accept bribes in exchange for something they have already done, something they have omitted to do, or something they intend to do in the future as part of their official obligations.
• Paying bribes in response to a public official’s acts.
• Inviting bribes as a result of a public official’s behavior.
• A public official directly or indirectly abuses the power granted to him by his position.
• A state servant issuing fake certificates.
• A public figure making untrue statements.
• Posing as public figures.
• Posing as members of the Nigerian Police Force’s armed forces.
• Wearing an armed military outfit against the law.
• Selling military outfits to unauthorized people.
• Negotiating for positions in the public sector.
• Perjury.
• Fabricating evidence with the goal of misleading a judge or jury in any court case.
• Corrupting a witness or witnesses in a legal proceeding with the intent to conceal or give false testimony.
• Lying to a witness in a legal proceeding with the intent to influence their testimony.
• Destroying the evidence needed for a court case with the goal of preventing its use as evidence.
• Forming a plot to level false accusations.
• Collaborating with someone else to thwart the administration of justice.
• Asking for, receiving, obtaining, or agreeing to obtain any kind of benefit or property in exchange for a promise to hide, avoid, or postpone legal action for a crime.
• Knowingly postponing bringing an arrested person before a judge.
• Bringing a fake case against someone else under a penal statute, law, or conduct in order to recover a fine for whatever crime the accused is accused of committing or is alleged to have committed.
• Reporting on any court case that has been ordered to be held in private and the evidence that was presented.
• Violation of the law.
• Attempting to or actually performing a rescue from legal custody.
• Eluding the legal system.
• A prison officer or a member of the Nigerian Police Force who allows someone in their legal custody to escape.
• Saving an insane person while they are being transported to, or while they are being held in, a hospital, an insane institution, or a reception home for the insane.
• Opposing or obstructing any person who is legitimately charged with carrying out a court-issued order or warrant.
• Possession of ten or more incomplete counterfeit coins.
• Creating or starting to create any current gold or silver coin that is counterfeit.
• Stopping mail in order to search or steal postal goods.
• A Nigerian Postal Service employee sending postal or money orders for fraudulent purposes.
• Telegrams or other postal mail being tampered with by a Nigerian Postal Service employee.
• Telegrams or other mail items on false pretenses.
• Retaining mail or telegrams on purpose.
• Postponing the delivery of mail or telegrams.
• Removing stamps with the intention of fraud from any postal item or telegram.
• Fraudulently skirting postal regulations.
• Preventing access to post and telegraph offices.
• Preventing post and telegraph employees from doing their jobs.
• Denying the Nigerian Postal Service Department’s unique prerogative.
• Damaging the letterbox and post office.
• Carelessly destroying it and any telegraph apparatus.
• It is against his duty for a telegraph official to publish or communicate a telegraph’s contents.
• Making fraudulent claims on any written passport application.
• Making a false statement during an oath-required statement.
• Firing a loaded gun into a vessel that a customs official is using to carry out his responsibilities is illegal.
• Killing, seriously injuring, or shooting a customs official while he is on duty to stop smuggling.
• Violently attacking or restraining a customs official or another someone whose job it is to stop smuggling while they are performing their duties.
• Reclaiming or making an effort to reclaim any goods that the Nigerian Customs Service has confiscated.
• Refusal on the part of a public servant to carry out the tasks that are required of him.
• A peace officer who, without justification, fails to put down riots in his neighborhood.
• Disobedience of a valid order given by a legitimate authority without a valid justification.
• Intentionally offending a religion in a way that its followers perceive the action as offensive.
• Threatening or physically preventing any preacher of a religion from doing his duties.
• Disturbing a gathering of individuals legally gathered for religious worship with a valid reason or justification.
• Leading or preside over any trial that is deemed illegal.
• Accusing or threatening to harm someone else by calling them a witch.
• Having authority over or being in possession of any human remains used or intended for use in voodoo rituals.
• A carnal understanding of an animal.
• Having sexual relations with a person of the same gender.
• Attempting to understand an animal on a visceral level.
• Attempting to engage in carnal contact with a transgender person.
• A girl under the age of thirteen being defiled.
• Defiling an immature young lady (aged between 13 and 16).
• Causing or promoting a girl’s prostitution before the age of sixteen.
• Allowing those who are younger than 16 to enter brothels.
• Encouraging a young woman under the age of 18 to engage in illicit sexual activity with anyone, whether in Nigeria or elsewhere.
• Stealing a minor female in order to engage in sexual activity with her.
• Plot to violate a young woman.
• Abortion.
• Providing equipment or medications to facilitate abortion.
• Putting items suited for food or drink up for sale.
• Trading in contaminated meat.
• Contaminating a water supply to render it unusable, whether it be a spring, stream, well, tank, or reservoir.
• Without the President’s or the Governor’s permission, attempting to bury a corpse in a house, a compound, or any open area inside a township.
• Selling or having in your possession white phosphorous-made matches.
• Making matches using white phosphorus.
• Murdering attempt.
• Preparing a murder plot.
• Trying to end one’s life.
• Intentionally putting people’s safety who use the railway transportation system in peril.
• Delivering poison willfully with the purpose to cause injury.
• Launching ships that are not seaworthy.
• Interfering with machinery and putting steamships in danger.
• Rape.
• Attempting to rape someone.
• Abduction.
• Kidnapping.
• Intimidating someone into doing action.
• Slave trade.
• Bigamy.
• Child-stealing.
• Abandonment of children by parents, guardians, or anyone else with the legal authority to care for a kid under the age of twelve.
• Publishing false information.
• Stealing.
• Hiding wills with the intention of cheating.
• Killing creatures with the purpose of stealing.
• Dealing with minerals in mines fraudulently.
• Bringing into Nigeria stolen items.
• Wrongful disposition of goods subject to a mortgage.
• Intentional robbery.
• Preparing to rob someone.
• Robbery.
• Burglary.
• Acquiring anything on false pretext.
• Pretending to use witchcraft or see people’s futures.
• Obtaining stolen goods.
• Illegal possession of weapons used by the military or police.
• Trustees misappropriating assets held in trust.
• Incorrect accounting that is fraudulent.
• Arson.
• Attempting to start a fire.
• Planting plants and setting crops on fire.
• Attempting to set crops on fire.
• Sending letters with destruction- or burn-related threats.
• Forgery.
• Claiming ownership of fake testamentary documents.
• Purchasing counterfeit money.
• Unlawful investigations into the potential for forgery
• Manufacture of a ballot illegally in order to conduct an election.
• A presidential candidate that spends more over NGN 1 billion on elections.
• A candidate for governor who spends more than NGN 200,000,000 on elections.
• A senatorial candidate that spent more over NGN 40,000,000 on elections.
• A candidate for the House of Representatives who spent more than NGN 20,000,000 on elections.
• State Assembly candidate who spent more than NGN 10,000,000 on elections.
• Unsafe driving.
• Driving when under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
• Driving when unrestrained.
• Multiple registrations during the INEC voter registration process.
• Driving without a spare tire or with worn-out tires.
• Driving when overtaking improperly.
• Declaring or disseminating a fraudulent election outcome.
• Buying votes during an election.
• Driving while in possession of fake documents.

CONCLUSION

These offences listed above are the various offences that are punishable by law in Nigeria today. The painful truth about these crimes is that, they are all committed in open broad day light by citizens, especially the elite in the country and they get away with it. Sometimes, it feels that the law was made by the rich to oppress the poor as most people feel higher than the law. What’s your take on the various types of offences as seen in this write-up?