by Nana Nwachukwu
We have seen kids sent to jail for April fool jokes et al. You know those pranks you send out on your smartphones? Those ones that end up killing people? Yeah, you might end up in jail for recklessness for a long time.
So we woke up one morning and a lot of people went on to take their bath with Salted water as well as ingesting some/a lot of it.
We woke up again and some had died from it while an apology from a supposed prankster came up stating it was not supposed to go viral.
Notwithstanding that several people had cited several sources both religious, traditional and pranks as the origin of the salt and water theory, let me explain a few things about pranks that go awry.
The Criminal Code Act Cap 77 LFN 1990 in Section 2 defined crime as:
“An act or omission which renders the person doing the act or making the emission liable to punishment under this code, or under any Act, or Law, is called an offence.”
Now I want us to understand that every crime has 2 elements;
- The mental element
- The physical element (the act)
The mental element of a crime comprises of the intention, motive, reckless behaviour, unconscious behaviour, accident and negligence.
I am going to focus on negligence and recklessness.
Guilt in negligence is predicated upon the objectivity test. The test that states that a person ought to have foreseen the consequences of his/her actions. This means that you should have known, you were supposed to know. This is very applicable to professionals.
For example, if a lawyer sends out a prank mail or broadcast saying people should go break into a place or ignore traffic laws at a particular time as the Government has announced such as being legal.
Such a person cannot excuse himself or herself by relying on everyone knowing that April 1st is a designated Fool’s day. In playing pranks, one has to be sure of the level of responsibility reposed in him/her before going ahead with such.
The same way your financial adviser cannot deliberately give you a wrong advice that alters your financial position significantly and goes ahead to maintain it was a joke. It’s a legal no no!
Guilt in recklessness presents itself when a person knows or is aware of the probable consequence of his/her actions and still goes ahead to carry out such an action. For example, driving without your license and knocking down a pedestrian. Sounds petty but you are going to jail for recklessness.
We have seen kids sent to jail for April fool jokes et al. You know those pranks you send out on your smartphones? Those ones that end up killing people? Yeah, you might end up in jail for recklessness for a long time.
I believe the best thing to do is maintain some level of responsibility so that we cannot do ourselves in. Do not forget, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
P.S: For the parents out there who believe they owe their kids nothing, nah! You’re wrong. The law says you do till they are 14. So we will talk about the law and parenting next…
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Nana Nwachukwu is a person who likes to put out her thoughts the way it is. It could be logical, it could be passionate or both. An ICT enthusiast who works on developing solution-based ideas and practises Law sometimes
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
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