PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF ADMINISTRATION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT (ACJA)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
My lords, I am concerned about the unjustifiable delay in our justice delivery system and it must be addressed to your lordships. “Concern” could be a euphemism example, can lead to a scandalously unpleasant situation in which a simple matter of breach of contract can drag on for five or more years in the court of first instance, and then drag on for fifteen years before being resolved in our Apex Court. In criminal instances, the situation is far worse and more pitiful, especially when the accused individual, who has the constitutional presumption of innocence until proven otherwise and stands a possibility of acquittal in the end, is detained in the meantime.
The declaration above remained a powerful cry for help, delivered by none other than a former Nigerian president. It could also be interpreted as an indictment of the country’s justice delivery apparatus, which may have been prioritized by previous administrations. More so, and possibly because Chief Obasanjo had already been at the bottom of the criminal justice system, incarcerated for the 1995 supposed coup under the Abacha regime. It is common knowledge that matters, whether civil or criminal, take an eternity to resolve in either the trial or appellate courts. Regardless, there are several other incalculable twists and turns poised to impede the steering wheel of justice administration and distribution in Nigeria. The fates of many persons have been jeopardized as a result of these systemic disappointments.
It goes without saying that numerous conferences, talks, and explanations must have taken place with no resolution that these growing pains will be avoided anytime soon. Justice Muktar Abimbola3 observed during one of such meetings: A case up to the Supreme Court takes an average of 22 years to resolve while it is not uncommon for verdicts to take between 5 and 10 years to be rendered entered before the High Courts due to the difficulties in the administration of criminal justice
At the very least, these arguments are supported by the following cases: Ariori v. Elemo5, which took twenty years to reach the Supreme Court and was decided per novo. In Edet Effiom v. the State6, it took 10 years, whilst in Al-Mustapha Hamzat v. the State7, where the defendant/appellant was arrested in October 1998, the case proceeded to appeal in 2013 and was finally resolved by the Court of Appeal in exactly fifteen years.Colonel Sambo Dasuki (Rtd), the former National Security Adviser (NSA) to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration, was arrested on December 29, 2015, for allegedly misappropriating $2.1 billion meant for the procurement of firearms to prosecute the Boko Haram insurgency.Mr Kanu, the head of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), is still detained and the trial has not begun. This demonstrates that the country’s criminal justice administration needs to improve its standing. This apparent inefficiency raises a slew of issues, including why it will take so long to resolve cases in this climate. Or, what has been done about the country’s systemic flaws with criminal justice administration? And, with the passage of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (hereafter “the ACJA”) in 2015, are those recurring issues resolvable?
Sincerely, the most important responsibility after the economy in every country is to develop a semblance of stability, legal justice, and social order under the rule of law.10 It is not as if there are no other ways to achieve these goals; rather, this strategy is the most reasonable in light of present reality. Instead of being bereft of any type of stability, nations have endeavored in various ways since time immemorial to favor order and discourage deviancy. This is done through the use of rules and regulations. Others are the conventions, traditions, taboos, or norms that are, to some extent, the remains of any system.
As a result, as civilisation spreads throughout the world, countries have advanced these beliefs into policies and regulations via established authorities11 in order to attain those goals. It became a basic policy goal of enlightened countries to have legislation constituted in this way. These constituted laws, some of which are organic in the sense that they serve as the fountain from which other laws draw their being, stay, and existence, establish the legal system or practice and procedure from which other laws deriving therefrom make provisions to be followed, particularly in criminal procedure, when a person is accused of committing an offence.It also provided for arrest, charge, trial, conviction or acquittal, punishment, and appeals if not satisfied with the proceedings. The constitution may express the foregoing in essentials and establish a body to administer on the basis of the basics. It also permits the legislature to enact legislation in response to any of its provisions. As a result, the criminal procedures15 that the National Assembly repealed and reformed as the ACJA 2015 follow that order. Previously, the country’s criminal procedure was governed by these two major statutes. The Criminal Procedure Act (CPA) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) were the two. The CPA was enacted in 1945 as a general law that applied across Nigeria until the country’s independence on October 1, 1960. It then ceased to be applicable to the entire country as a result of Northern Nigerians’ contention that it was more Judaeo-Christian than Moslem. Reasonably, its application was limited to the southern portions of the country when the CPC was enacted, and it became the applicable criminal procedure legislation in the northern sections of the country. Following the supplemental split of Nigeria into states from Regions, the successive states used the enactment that was most suited to the territory previous to establishment. Nigeria currently has thirty-six states and a Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. The southern states use the now-rested CPA as state law, while the northern states use the CPC, which includes
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