The Executive Director of Cleen Foundation, Dr. Benson Olugbuo has disclosed that for the administration of criminal justice system to be effective, the police as gatekeepers of the justice Act requires continued training and retraining of its personnel.
The Executive Director stated this while delivering his welcome address at a two-day step-down training workshop for officers of the Nigeria police force on the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) in Bauchi on Wednesday.
Represented by the Assistant Program Manager of the foundation, Mr. Nnamdi Odo, the Director said Clean Foundation was established in 1998 with a mission to promote public safety, security and accessible justice through the strategies of empirical research, legislative advocacy among others.
According to him, police have been one of the closest working partners with governments, civil society and the private sector towards the improvement of public safety and security in Nigeria.
“The ACJA, 2015 as we all know has brought fundamental reforms to our criminal justice system. The Act was designed to not only preserve and strengthen existing legal frameworks but also to enhance the efficiency of the institutions within the criminal justice system and the protection of human rights of citizens, suspects, defendants and victims “, Dr. Olugbuo said.
He explained that the legislative purpose of the Act was to have a nationwide application and to also introduce a national criminal procedure law that will regulate the investigation and prosecution of offences throughout the federation.
The Director who stated that 29 states across the country have adopted the Act explained that findings from public perceptions survey carried out by Clean Foundation in 2017 and 2018 to monitor the administration of the Act’s reform revealed that there is low level of awareness amongst criminal justice institutions including the police.
Dr. Olugbuo who said, the survey also indicated that there is increased in the number of states adopting the law, called for adequate awareness on the provisions of the law and their applicability in criminal proceedings.
The states that have adopted the Act according to the Executive Director includes Enugu, Rivers, Delta, Kaduna, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Ondo, Oyo, Kogi, Ogun and Plateau.
Others he mentioned are; Bayelsa, Edo, Benue, Adamawa, Jigawa,Nasrawa, Bauchi, Kano, Yobe, Kwara, Osun, Sokoto, Ebonyi and Katstina.
Dr. Olugbuo said that the foundation has in its efforts to support the stride of the Inspector General of police to improve professionalism and delivery of service organized series of training programs for the officers and men of the Nigeria police across the country.
He said that the aim of the training has always been geared towards improving the knowledge, technical capacity and skills of law enforcement personnel to enable them understand and play their role in the implementation of the Act.
“The rationale for organizing the training of trainers (ToT) workshop was to support the Nigeria police in building technical capacity to step down the training through its ranks”, Olugbuo said.
He said further that the training is part of follow up step down training being conducted by the trainees across the 12 police zonal commands to share the knowledge gained to other police officers.
He explained that the step down training across 12 zonal commands of the Nigeria police is to train officers from the state police commands within each of the zones at ratio 20 officers per each zone.
“The step down training have been organized for over six months, and so far, we have conducted training for all state police commands in 10 zonal commands of Kano, Lagos, Adamawa, Benue, Edo, Cross River, Abuja, Kogi, Abia and Osun respectively”, Dr. Olugbuo enumerated.
While thanking the Nigeria police for the cooperation, the Director expressed hope that the outcome of the training will make meaningful impact towards diligent investigation and prosecution of criminal cases.
Declaring the event opened, the Assistant Inspector General of police (AIG) in charge of zone 12 Bauchi, Sunusi Lemu described the training as timely, considering how strategic it is to the men and officers of the Nigeria police.
“We know how important this kind of training is to the police, we know how important it is to our profession. We have seen, heard and touched the importance of criminal justice in today’s Nigerian society”, he stressed.
The AIG who was represented by DCP Ali Kaigama advised the participants to pay attention and get involved as representatives of their various commands, saying, “I believe that you will leave here more informed than when you came in. I also hope that when you get back to your various commands you will be able to impact the knowledge acquired to your colleagues”.
A participant from Yobe state, ASP Dungus Abdulkareem described the event as impressive commended Yobe state for making efforts to ensuring the domestication of the ACJA Act.
ASP Abdulkareem, the Police Public Relations Officer for Yobe state Command who said that the police does not have any challenges regarding compliance to the criminal justice Act because it is procedural law where most of it affects the court, explained that a police officer only arrest and arraign the suspect before the court.
“If you can observe from the ACJA the power of the police to prosecute has been a little bit diminished by making it that if a police officer can prosecute he can only be a lawyer, going by what I understand right now”, he said.
“So, in that regard, if there is any challenge, then I can say it is left for the states to consider to either provide the police with lawyers so that we will be supplementing the ministry of justice in terms of prosecuting cases in order to reduce the number of suspects in our cells.
