NWAOHA v. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE

Dissatisfied with the decision of the said Chief Magistrate Court, led the appellant and the other two convicts to appeal to the appellate jurisdiction of the High Court of Rivers State with their Notice of Appeal filed on 8/3/1994.
In its judgment delivered on 17/7/1996, the High Court of Rivers State sitting as a special appeal cases Court, coram: K. D. Ungbuku, the Chief Judge (of blessed memory) and C.I. Uriri, J. (as he then was) found the appeal incompetent and same was dismissed.
Further aggrieved with the decision of the High Court led to the appeal by the appellant and two others to the Port-harcourt division of the Court of Appeal. In its unanimous decision handed down on 25/02/2010, the Court below found the appeal incompetent and unmeritorious. It dismissed same without costs. That dismissal has led to the instant appeal filed on 2nd June, 2014 , pursuant to the order of this Court earlier obtained for extension of time to appeal against the decision of the Court below.
The appellant was one of the three appellants at the Court below. Parties filed and exchanged briefs of argument, and the appeal was heard on the following processes: Amended appellant brief of argument filed on 16/01/2018 but deemed properly filed and served on 18/01/2018, Respondent’s brief of argument filed on 19/04/2016 but deemed duly filed and served on 18/01/2018.
From the appellant’s said amended brief of argument, the following two issues are distilled for the determination of this appeal.
Issue 1
Was the lower Court right when it came to the conclusion that the appellant did not file a brief of argument, the basis on which it refused to hear the appeal on the merit and thereby visiting the sin of the Registry, who misfiled the appellant’s brief on the appellant? The sin of the Registry issue – (Ground 1)
Issue 2
Was the lower Court not wrong to have dismissed the appellant’s appeal without a hearing on the merits and on the ground that the appellant did not file a separate brief of argument from the other appellants in the appeal before the lower Court? The dismissal without hearing on the merit issue – (Ground 2).
On issue one, distilled from ground 1 of the Notice of Appeal challenging the decision of the Court below in dismissing the appellants appeal based on what the appellant considered as the manifest error of the Court below’s registry in misfiling the appellant’s brief of argument, the appellant referred to pages 129-130 of the record for the judgment of the Court below, inter alia, learned counsel contended that the question that begs for answer is whether the Court below was right to have dismissed the appellant’s appeal as it did without hearing on the merits on the basis that the appellant did not file any Brief of argument. He answered in the negative. He submitted that the lower Court was patently wrong in dismissing the appellant’s appeal on the ground that the appellant did not file a brief of argument. Learned counsel submitted that contrary to the findings of the Court below, the appellant filed briefs of argument on 8th June, 1998 and on 18th October, 2010. He referred to the findings in the judgment of the Court below for the references made by the Court to the process filed by the appellant as a brief of argument. He contended that from the said references in the judgment of the Court below to the pages and paragraphs of the appellant’s brief of argument, the lower Court was then in error to have held that there was no appellant’s brief of argument upon which the appeal was dismissed. He contended that the said dismissal of the appeal becomes a nullity, in that there was a subsisting appeal which deserved to be heard on merit at the time the dismissal order was made by the Court below. He urged the Court to upturn and set aside the dismissal order of the Court below relying on Ede Vs Mba (2011) 18 NWLR (pt. 1278) 236.
Learned counsel contended that, assuming without conceding that there was no appellant’s brief of argument filed in the

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