The Rules of various courts make allowance for amendment of processes at any stage of proceedings as may be necessary for the purpose of determining the real questions in controversy between the parties.
In Akaninwo v Nisirim, the court held thus:
The law is indeed well settled that an amendment of pleadings shall be allowed at any stage of the proceedings unless it will entail injustice to other side responding to the application. The application should also be granted unless the applicant is acting mala fide or by his blunder, the applicant has done some injury to the respondent which cannot be compensated in terms of costs or otherwise. [1]
In that case the Supreme Court allowed an amendment of 10 out of 23 paragraphs of a statement of defence, sought after the cross examination of plaintiff’s 2nd witness, notwithstanding the findings of the trial court that the amendment sought would have the effect of allowing the defendants to withdraw or abandon paragraphs in which part of the claim of the plaintiff/respondents had been admitted thereby forcing the plaintiff/respondent to have to file a reply to the new statement of defence with the necessity of having to recall the two witnesses who had already testified.
Indeed, the Supreme Court held that finding alone was sufficient for the trial court to have allowed the amendment.
In Chief Adedapo Adekeye and others v Chief O.B Akin – Olugbade Oputa JSC of blessed memory stated thus:
An amendment is nothing but the correction of an error committed in any process, pleading or proceeding at law or in equity, and which is done either as of course or by the consent of parties or upon notice to the court in which the proceeding is pending. The object of courts is to decide the rights of the parties and not to punish them for mistakes they make in the conduct of their cases by deciding otherwise than in accordance with their rights. There is no kind of mistake or error which if not fraudulent or intended to overreach, the courts cannot correct, if this can be done without injustice, to the other party.
Blunders may occur and nowadays they do occur with disturbing regularity, but all the same the courts should not be stampeded into chasing the shadows of these blunders rather than facing the substance of the justice of the case.
The aim of an amendment is usually to prevent the manifest injustice of a cause from being defeated or delayed by formal slips which arise from the inadvertence of counsel. It will certainly be wrong to visit the inadvertence or mistake of counsel on the litigant. The courts have therefore through the years taken a stand that however negligent or careless may have been the slips, however late the proposed amendment it ought to be allowed, if this can be done without injustice to the other side. For a step taken to ensure justice cannot at the same time and in the same breath be used to perpetuate an injustice to the opposite party. The test as to whether a proposed amendment should be allowed is therefore whether or not the party applying to amend can do so without placing the opposite party in such a position which cannot be redressed by that panacea which heals every sore in litigation namely costs… [2]
In Eze v Ene and another, Rhodes Vivour JSC stated thus:
Before the close of evidence and after the close of evidence amendments would be allowed if evidence on it is already on record. An amendment would be allowed to make pleadings fall in line with evidence already on record.[3]
[1](2008) 9 NWLR paras E-G part 1093, 439 at 460.
[2]1987 LPELR 104(SC) 4 – 15 paras B – C; Akaninwo v Nsirim 2008 LPELR – 321 (SC).
[3]2017 LPELR – 41916 (JSC) 6 paras E-F.