In Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar all trials in the High Court take place with the aid of Assessors. The same rule applies in Kenya, except in the case of Europeans, when the trial is before a judge and jury. In trials with the aid of Assessors, as in the case of trial by jury, at the conclusion of the evidence and the addresses on behalf of the prosecution and the defence the Judge may sum up to the Assessors the evidence for the prosecution and the defence. In the relevant section in all four Criminal Procedure Codes the word preceding the words “sum up” is “may”. That is to say, there is no statutory obligation on the trial Judge to sum up the evidence, but, as said in Washington v. R. (1954), 21 E.A.C.A. 392, it is a very sound practice which is almost invariably followed by Judges in East African territories except in the very simplest cases. Furthermore, as held in R. v. Lute (1934), 1 E.A.C.A. 106, in all but the clearest cases, it is desirable that the Judge should make a note of the points put to the Assessors in such summing up, and the evidence which he has stated as supporting or otherwise each point.

The early reports which Northern Nigeria's first High Commissioner, Sir Frederick Lugard, made to Mr. Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, contain several unflattering references to “the hostility of the Munshi tribe” (1900–1 report) “who occupy about 4,000 square miles south of the Benue” (1904), “use poisoned arrows of a very deadly kind, and are a constant source of trouble, firing at canoes proceeding up the river” (1900–1), and arresting the construction of the important 200-mile telegraph line from Lokoja, the first capital, to the Niger Company's station up river at Ibi. Their physical dispersion in small groups over wide areas of thick bush, combined with the dispersal of authority over a number of petty “chiefs”, no doubt presented in some ways a more difficult problem than the centralised Emirates further north, the submission or capture of whose capital, combined with the appointment of a friendly-disposed Emir, could be the key to the immediate pacification of a wide area. It was not until 1907–8 that Lugard's successor could report “the inauguration of peaceful penetration and occupation of … the hitherto impenetrable Munshi country”.