In a bid to address the issue of underfunding of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL) in Nigeria, the CLEEN Foundation in conjunction with the MacArthur Foundation on Wednesday April 2, 2025, engaged media stakeholders on a one-day parley on how to amplify this issue and proffer solutions to the challenge.
The programme with the theme: Media Advocacy for Increased Budgetary Allocation for Efficient Implementation of the ACJL Regime attracted journalist from different media houses.
According to Peter Maduoma, Acting Executive Director (ED), CLEEN Foundation, “the programme is focused on engaging the media on the project we have ran in about eight states funded by MacArthur Foundation. The programme focuses on the monitoring the implementation of the ACJA across the states and for this phase of the project we have worked in some northern and southern states which include Kwara, Sokoto, Bauchi, Jigawa, Katsina, Edo, Delta, and Cross River and from time to time especially every quarter we bring our findings on these projects to engage the media because we believed very strongly on the media being the Fourth Estate of the Realm of government and leadership in the nation”.
Nigeria, particularly through the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) and its state implementations, is a complex issue with challenges related to funding allocations and resource allocation, as well as the need for efficient management of criminal justice institutions.
Despite the provisions in the Nigerian Constitution, ACJA, and ACJL, there are challenges in translating these provisions into adequate funding allocations for the courts and other criminal justice institutions – investigation, prosecution to adjudication.
“Today we have brought about findings we have in the last quarter which centered on the issue of funding and budgetary allocation for the ACJA implementation across the eight states which we have worked. The government is not intentionally budgeting for the implementation of the ACJA and the law across the state”, he states.
Some of the issues highlighted by CLEEN Foundation include Budget and Attorney General’s offices not offering releases timely; Criminal justice agencies flout directives during budget call circulars as they prioritise capital projects for personal gains; Poor knowledge of the ACJL amongst criminal justice stakeholders across all levels; Poor pre-post stakeholders’ budget engagements; Lack of transparency in the design of budget; Personalisation of the budget process to fit into the agenda of the governor and no strategic direction for ACJL implementation
The ED explains that “we found a situation where so much money is budgeted for building of houses, building of bridges but not really substantial money is being budgeted for achieving effective implementation of ACJL. That means for administration of criminal justice in Nigeria, the implementation continues to be weak because we believe effective implementation also runs on money”.
In his presentation, Dr Salaudeen Hashim, Programme Director, CLEEN Foundation, maintains that despite ACJA being a beautiful piece of legislation, “unfortunately there has not been any sort of will in terms of resourcing to allow that particular Act to be on the same level and to function very efficiently”.
“We did a pre-preview of the 2025 budget of the 35 states and we realise that over N245 billion has been actually allocated to local security guards and setting up local security infrastructure, procuring guns for defence but nobody from across the states has actually deliberately put in so much to ensure there is an efficient functionality of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law in most of the states”.
CLEEN Foundation reveals that is a big deficit in the side of the state and tells very clearly that perhaps it is because the government has some sorts of political influence on the judiciary generally, where they believe this idea of supporting and providing budgetary support will actually make it completely dependent, this becomes very challenging to be able do the bidding of the political elite.
Other issues noticed in some of the states monitored include development of practice directions as an alternative to ACJL; others do not even have a enough courts and judges, lack of clear basis for assessing government on the awareness, no consistency in the chain of ACJL implementation across the states. No consistency in the approaches, absence of a document that is acceptable to detail government policy thrust around ACJL implementation and non availability of the ACJL copies within various criminal justice institutions.
The foundation questions why the states are afraid to adequately provide resources for the implementation of the ACJL across the state, describing ACJL as one of the efficient and most modern legislation that will actually reduce the rights violations that we see; reduce infractions, and speed up trials. Dr Hashim calls on media to intervene in the situation where the budgetary allocation for the ACJL Committee, money that needs to go to the various states for implementation are not there.
“Some of them are using their small money in their various units to ensure that things happen. This issue is a holistic thing when it comes to implementation and sufficient budgeting is key, for instance the police is underfunded because in their stations everything you need, you pay for because there is no fund, logistics is a problem”.
There are states where there is lack of coordination among the people that are implementing the ACJL; the police, courts, ministry of justice and all the stakeholders are not coordinated “but we try through our observation group to ensure that we bring the police, correctional centre, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps in the states to understand that they need to work together.
For instance Katsina, there are lots of information shared among the stakeholders; the speaker of the House, Chief Justice of the State are already sharing information at the same time, that’s why they are very effective in the implementation of ACJL”.
The foundation condemns the paltry N73 million budgeted for the implementation of ACJA in the 2024 at the national level. “We think that is not very correct when you are putting over a billion for the renovation of offices. One of the things we have discovered very clearly is that state level and across board who rather put money into capital projects”. Dr Hashim posits.
The foundation pinpoints that Ministry of Justice at State and National levels have not demonstrated deliberate willpower to reform the criminal justice system. The National and State Houses of Assemblies are not providing the needed appropriation and oversight, and the Executive have weaponised judicial welfare, especially plea bargain for political gains.
According to Dr Hashim, plea bargain has been bastardised and has become a weapon for law enforcement agents particularly to exploit those in search for justice or those who are considered to be victims.
“Most importantly politically exposed persons (PEPs) have now seen it as an exit door to be able to escape justice and for us is the most fundamental element. Once a crime is committed it behoves on the state to actually ensure that justice is served but what we have seen very clearly is at the point of investigation, they quickly introduce plea bargaining as an alternative to that person going through the justice route and find a way to procure justice”.
“If the ACJL is not well implemented, then we don’t have a society where there is justice, fairness and where also there is inclusion because we find in the administration of criminal justice system that sometimes the women are at disadvantage. That is why we advocate the implementation of this particular law, states should start what we call gender court, where issues that concerns female gender is accelerated for example in Katsina State, they have a gender court, so issues that affect women are brought to that court and there’s speed in the dispensation of justice”, Maduoma advises.
When the foundation visited the Katsina State police command, they were a lot of reforms for instance there are separate places for male and female inmates. “Their interrogation or statement room is air-conditioned, constructed like a studio and everything is taken on voice and recorded. And these are the things we want to happen across Nigeria. The effectiveness of this interaction is to strengthen the work and implementation of the ACJL in Nigeria”, the ED states.
“We are advocating as CLEEN Foundation, that the media should help us amplify some of these things we are saying because there’s a need for government and duty bearers to focus on funding the implementation of administrative of criminal justice in Nigeria. Let the National/State Assemblies who do the appropriation and who also do the oversight function know that money has to be put in that area”.
‘The justice system needs to be funded if we must live a quiet and peaceful lives and have a society where all of us can live and thrive, where growth and development can take place in Nigeria
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