The duty of every appellant is to show and or establish that the decision he has appealed was wrong or unreasonable. Every decision of a Court of law, a judicial act, done in a manner substantially regular is presumed to be correct and that formal requisites for its validity were complied with. The presumption of regularity under Section 167(1) of the Evidence Act, 2011 is all about this.
— E. Eko, JSC. Kassim v. State (2017) – SC.361/2015
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In law, a decision or finding or conclusion reached is perverse amongst other grounds if it does not flow from the established facts from the evidence before the Court or it takes into consideration matters extraneous to the issues placed before the Court in evidence by the parties.
– B.A. Georgewill, JCA. Ganiyu v. Oshoakpemhe & Ors. (2021) – CA/B/12A/2021
Ndayoko & Ors. V. Alhaji Dantoro & Ors (2004) 13 NWLR (Pt. 889) 187 @ p. 198, where Edozie JSC., had pronounced with finality on this vexed issue, thus: “An appellate Court is only concerned with whether the judgment appealed against is right or wrong not whether the reasons given are right or wrong. Where the judgment is right but the reasons given are wrong, the appellate Court does not interfere. It is only where the misdirection has caused the Court to come to a wrong conclusion that the appellate Court will interfere….”
Again for emphasis is that an appellate Court such as this Apex one, will not reverse the decision of the Court below simply because the conclusion and decision were reached from a wrong reason. This is so because once the decision is correct the wrong channel or route through which that decision was made would not scuttle the said conclusion. See The State v John Ogbubunjo (2001) 1 SCNJ 86 at 106 per Onu JSC. — M.U. Peter-Odili, JSC. Kwara Judicial Commission v Tolani (2019) – SC.63/2010
C.S.S Book Shop Ltd. v. The Regd. Trustees of Muslim Community in Rivers State (2006) 4 SCM 310 “A decision of a Court is perverse when it ignores the facts or evidence adduced and admitted before it and when considered as a whole amount to miscarriage of justice. In such a case, an appellate Court is bound to interfere with such a decision and to set it aside.”
A decision is perverse where, for example, it has been shown that the trial court (or the court below) took into account matters which it ought not to have taken into account or where the decision has occasioned a miscarriage of justice.
— Kekere-Ekun JSC. Uzodinma v. Ihedioha (2020)
I shall now consider what really was decided in these two cases and see if the principles of those decisions (not the dicta) apply to the facts and circumstances of the case now on appeal.
– Oputa, JSC. Green v. Green (1987)
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