There have been several attempts by various administrations to reform the justice system in Nigeria, despite all efforts the reforms can be termed as progress without movement. This is because successive have struggled to effectively implement key reform recommendations from various presidential committees.
Despite a perceived lack of political will for comprehensive reform, incremental progress has been made through legislation since 2015, including the passage of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (2015), Anti-Torture Act (2017), Police Trust Fund Act (2019), Nigeria Correctional Service Act (2019), and the amendment of the Police Act (2020).
On this background and to address this issue and others, CLEEN Foundation, a non-governmental organisation with interest in public safety, security and accessible justice, under its MacArthur Foundation project organised a two-day Citizens’ Engagement on Policing Reforms and Accountability of Justice Sector Actors in states in the South-south and North-west regions of the country. These states include Cross River, Delta Edo in the South-south and Katsina, Jigawa and Sokoto in the North-west.
Mr Salaudeen Hashim, Programme Director, CLEEN Foundation, while briefing journalists on the outcome of the project, during the Policy Media Presentation on October 17, 2024 in Lagos, said “the aim of the initiative is to strengthen the entire policing system and for us to work with the policing system to be able to improve the kind of mandate that established them and also respond to the need of local and ordinary Nigerians”.
“One of the things that we have seen is that there is this concern that access to justice or security is something that is not being informed by human security needs but by regime security so it is for us to complement the efforts of the state, particularly the policing institutions to be able to deepen the confidence of the people”.
During the briefing tagged: ‘Policing Reforms and Accountability of Justice Sectors in Nigeria’, he also revealed that the workshop was aimed at providing an enabling environment for stakeholders to reflect on the importance of citizens' engagement in policing reform efforts and how accountable justice actors are in implementing the Administration of Criminal Justice Regime in Nigeria. It was also an avenue to reflect on emerging issues emanating from the project and draw helpful recommendations from all stakeholders on policing and forging collaborations between citizens and security agencies in the project states.
He listed some of the challenges police and policing are facing to include equipment, training and most importantly public trust, which is where the challenge really lies. These are some issues that border on how to transform the policing infrastructure in the country, to be able to safeguard life and property because the first order of the state is to safeguard citizens; and citizens believe for policing to be very effective that oversight must be strengthened and there must be a level of internal strengthening of the entire system.
“For us to achieve this there must be some level of both political, operational, personnel and of course some level of support from different system; and how the extant laws also achieve and support the entire process from being achieved. For us functionally there must be some sorts of infrastructure that supports the operationalisation of modern and contemporary policing to be able to respond to the needs of the people”.
“We believe very strongly that some kind of attempts from different quarters to improve the confidence of citizens in police and the entire policing infrastructure is actually working but again there must be some deliberate efforts that must be done and put in place to ensure that we deepen this very divide”.
The system is making efforts to put the reform pathway that will be owned by the people and again there are tactical-level challenges and setbacks, which are everyday police officers who interface with people, who don’t share the vision with the strategic-level officers, that divide and contrast are where the challenges truly lies.
“Police and policing infrastructure are owned by the people and people have a role to play in supporting the entire process, and the values that have been created by the political structure and what can be done differently, how they can see where the gaps exist and how the gaps can be bridged’.
The findings also suggests that laws are still gender blind and there are provisions within the system that does not support some gender-responsive plan, particularly as it borders around the contemporary needs and modern policing requires that there must be some level of parity and balancing.
For instance Nigerian Police Force Orders No. 430 Sub 81 (Admin Instruct No. 23) provides amongst other things that “a woman candidate for enlistment in the police force shall be unmarried”. Meanwhile no such restriction applies to the men.
Section 2.5 of the NSCDC Condition of Service provides that on first appointment, unmarried female staff (officers) shall remain unmarried for the 2 years after which marriage approval would be sought for
The Armed Forces Act, Section 5 made provisions for the recruitment and maintenance of Armed Forces of Nigeria to include women, but the ratio of women remains insignificant.
Despite all these laws the policing infrastructure has what they call the Gender Desk but the laws are not saying the same thing. There is a law that provides discriminatory provisions, and those provisions are where citizens are concerned and needs additional reviews and should also be looked into around them.
How far can these reforms go with political interference? Mr Hashim said for every reform to achieve its desired result and objective, there must be political will but when political interference are not supporting the reform to achieve its goal there is going to be setback.
“But what we think currently is that there seems to be sort of political support in terms of how the reform agenda can be achieved but at sub-national levels we are having challenges and setbacks. We are hoping that the sub-national levels can be able to share the visions with the national level to see that there is a sync and consistency in the kind of efforts that we are collectively putting together”.
The research shows that Nigerians wants to see a kind of policing that is modern and respects the rights of the people. A police that actually safeguards, protects (protective and proactive) not a police that witch hunts, not having a set mind or set agenda but a policing that people can actually see, be confident and have trust and see as partners in progress.
On the issue of insecurity, the Programme Director stated that “security is interactive and you cannot achieve adequate and human sustainable security without looking at the entire pyramid that complements human security component”.
“That is the issue of economic security. So long as the people still feel disenfranchised, resented, the issue of livelihood is still challenged, people are still within the poverty corridor tendencies are that criminality will be on the rise and will continue to be on the increase”.
“If you deal with the issue of economy and you are able to manage it in such a way that people can actually feel some level of safe around it, tendencies are there that issue of security will be dealt with by 50 per cent”.
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