By Uthman-Baba Naseer,Minna <\/p>\n
The Attorney General and Commissioner For Justice in Niger State ,Alhaji Nasir Mua\u2019zu has made clarification on the recent withdrawal of Police Prosecuting Officers that are not Lawyers from prosecuting in Magistrate and Shariah Courts saying the withdrawal did not come as a surprise.<\/p>\n
He explained that about six months ago, the Chief Judge had already met with stakeholders and gave the same directive, specifically warning that policemen who are not lawyers should stop prosecuting cases.<\/p>\n
He said the ministry had asked for time until December 2025 to prepare, and now that it is January, the judiciary is only enforcing existing laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Chief Judge did not introduce any new law. What is being done is simply to give effect to the Administration of Criminal Justice Law and the Police Act 2020, which restrict prosecution to qualified lawyers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nasir said the Ministry of Justice has already started making arrangements to fill the gap created by the withdrawal of non-lawyer prosecutors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a good number of lawyers in the ministry, and our plan is to post them to magistrate courts, especially in major towns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He explained that the first phase will cover Minna, Bida, Kontagora and Suleja, adding that the exercise will serve as a test run to see how far the ministry can go. He also revealed that the ministry has asked the state government to approve the recruitment of 50 more lawyers to strengthen prosecution in courts.<\/p>\n
However, the commissioner admitted that the task will not be easy. He said many of the ministry\u2019s lawyers are already engaged in other duties, including serving as legal advisers to ministries, departments and agencies, but some of them will now be reassigned to courts to handle prosecutions previously done by police officers.<\/p>\n
Before now, the police were prosecuting cases in more than 200 courts across the state, with some courts having up to two police prosecutors. Nasir said suddenly withdrawing all of them is a major challenge for the ministry.<\/p>\n
To address the situation, the Ministry of Justice has held an emergency meeting with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Minna Branch, to seek cooperation. He said the ministry advised that in cases where a lawyer is already \u201cwatching brief\u201d for a complainant, such a lawyer can apply to take over the prosecution. He added that lawyers can also apply to be assigned cases, and some of the work may be done on a pro bono basis due to financial constraints.<\/p>\n
He said he plans to attend the next NBA meeting to appeal to lawyers to support the system so that justice will not suffer.<\/p>\n
Nasir noted that the old laws, the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code were used for over 60 years, and switching fully to the new law will naturally come with challenges. <\/p>\n
He stressed that the new policy is not meant to punish anyone, but to strengthen the justice system in the long run.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese laws may look harsh now, but in the end they will improve the administration of criminal justice in Niger State,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added that police officers who are qualified lawyers and have been called to the Nigerian Bar are not affected by the restriction and can still be engaged to prosecute cases.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, findings show that the directive has already begun to affect proceedings in some courts, raising concerns about delays in the handling of criminal cases, especially for inmates awaiting trial in correctional centres.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the development, the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Minna Branch, Isyaku Barau Esq., said the directive, though in line with the law, could slow down the administration of criminal justice in the state in the short term.
\nHe said many pending cases in Magistrate and Sharia Courts were being handled by police prosecutors and will now suffer delays.<\/p>\n
He also noted that the Niger State Police Command has very few officers who are qualified lawyers, while the office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) in the Ministry of Justice also lacks enough lawyers to cover all the courts.<\/p>\n
He appealed to the Chief Judge and the state government to urgently look into the situation in the interest of justice and of defendants who are already in custody and awaiting trial.<\/p>\n
Despite the challenges, the Ministry of Justice insists that the reforms will, in the long run, strengthen the criminal justice system and ensure that prosecutions are handled strictly according to the law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Uthman-Baba Naseer,Minna The Attorney General and Commissioner For Justice in Niger State ,Alhaji Nasir Mua\u2019zu has made clarification on the recent withdrawal of Police Prosecuting Officers that are not Lawyers from prosecuting in Magistrate and Shariah Courts saying the withdrawal did not come as a surprise. He explained that about six months ago, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[5000,3390,4457],"class_list":["post-10606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime","tag-directive","tag-specifically","tag-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10608,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10606\/revisions\/10608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}