AN EXAMINATION OF THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE NIGERIAN POLICE UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 2015: CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD

The Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) was enacted by the Nigerian National Assembly in 2015 to repeal the Criminal Procedure Code and the Criminal Procedure Act which were both in operation in the Northern and Southern regions of Nigeria respectively. It introduces some innovations aimed at ensuring better protection of human rights of suspects in Nigeria. Consequent on the above, this article examined the obligation of the Nigerian police and other security agencies to suspects under the ACJA in order to ascertain if its provisions are adequate in addressing the issues of human rights’ violation of criminal suspects in Nigeria. In this light, the article examined among others issues bothering on apprehending of offenders, provision of humane treatment to suspects, and granting of bail to suspects in detention facilities. In achieving this, the author adopted the doctrinal research method which deals with the use of primary and secondary materials. The author found among others that although section 18 of the ACJA provided that a person may be arrested without warrant upon reasonable suspicion, the ACJA is silent on the elastic term-‘reasonable suspicion’. This has vested the police with unrestricted discretion which may be used to violate the rights of Nigerian citizens. The article therefore recommended among others that section 18 of the ACJA should be urgently amended to define the elastic term – ‘reasonable suspicion’. This is necessary to reduce the discretion of the Police in arresting citizens without warrant.