By OKEKE JANE
Cleen Foundation has said that the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015 has brought fundamental reforms to the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
The Executive Director, Cleen Foundation, Benson Olugbuo, PhD, made the assertion Thursday in Abuja during the public presentation of the summary findings from round 1 survey to monitor administration of criminal justice in Nigeria.
Olugbuo noted that the Act is designed not to only preserve and strengthen existing legal frameworks but also enhance the efficiency of the Institutions within the criminal justice system and the protection of human rights of citizens, suspects, defendant and victims.
According to him, the legislative purpose of the ACJA, 2015 is to have a nation-wide application, to introduce a national criminal procedure law that will regulate the investigation and prosecution of offences throughout the federation.
“The Act being an Act of the National Assembly is only applicable to to the Federal Capital Territory and to Federal courts and other federal institutions including the Nigeria Police, correctional service and other law enforcement agencies even as the states continue to adopt the Act.
“So, far, 29 out of 36 states have already adopted the Act.
“However, despite the passage of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act(ACJA) 2015, its effective implementation into the criminal justice system has remained slow and the age-long challenges in the criminal justice process for which the Act was enacted still persist.
“While concerted efforts are being made from various quarters, state and non-state actors alike, the need to sustain the momentum of the advocacy necessitated Cleen Foundation to design a follow-up project targeted at strengthening accountability and transparency in the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
“This is through sustained advocacy and monitoring of the implementation of Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015,” he said.
The Executive Director, disclosed that previous surveys on Monitoring the of (ACJA) 2015 were carried out in 2018 in 12 states comprising of two states per geo-political zone in Nigeria by Cleen Foundation.
He pointed out that the result of the survey indicated low level awareness of the ACJA 2015 both by the general public and criminal justice actors which necessitated the scale-up in this phase of the project to cover the 36 states of the federation.
He further said that the primary objective of the project include, providing reliable and credible data on the implementation of ACJA 2015 and other similar state related laws that can support stakeholders and citizens to understand better the extent, trends and challenges in the implementation of the laws as well as its domestication by states in order to drive robust advocacy, among others.
