Turnbull (1976) 3 ALL ER 549, (1977) QB 224; Ikemson v. State (1989)
1 CLRN 1."
Also, in Balogun v. A-G. Ogun State (2002) 6 NWLR (Pt.763), Pg. 512 at
534, the Supreme Court per Uwaifo JSC held thus:
"An identification parade will be useful when a witness claims to have
seen an unfamiliar person who escaped from a crime scene in
circumstances which require putting to test the witness's power of
recognition based upon the physical features and/or other peculiarities of
the person he claims to have seen. There must be real doubts as to who the
witness claims he saw in connection with the offence to require
identification parade."
See also Ukpabi v. State (2004) 11 NWLR Pt. 884 Pg. 439; Ebiri v. State
(2004) 11 NWLR Pt. 885 Pg. 589; Sunday Ndidi v. The State (2007) All
FWLR Pt. 381Pg. 1617; Archibong v. The State (2006) 14 NWLR Pt.1000
Pg. 349; Ogoala v. The State (1991) 2 NWLR Pt.175 Pg. 509.
Thus, an identification parade would be necessary where the accused was
not arrested at the scene of the crime; the witness did not know the
accused before; witness was confronted with the accused for a short time,
the witness, because of the peculiar circumstances did not have the
opportunity to see fully the features of the accused.
The proper procedure in identification parade is to shield the accused from
members of the public before the identification parade is conducted. See
Jerome Akpan & Ors v. The State (2002) 12 NWLR Pt. 780 Pg. 189. The
usual way to conduct identification parade is to put the accused with other
persons for the witness to pick. The police are not entitled to assist the
identification of an accused person or suspect under arrest by bringing out
the accused in handcuffs. See Waidi Ajibade v. The State (1987) 1 NWLR
Pt. 48 Pg. 205. Identification parade would not be properly conducted
when the witness is asked leading questions like "Is this the person?" or
when a police officer nods in the direction of the accused person. Since the
Appellant was identified by PW1 at the police station where he was taken
after being arrested for the crime PW1 complained of, there was no
identification parade. The identification parade must be considered with
the description of the accused person given to the police shortly after the
offence was committed which should have been given by PW2 who