‘Issues of marriage should not be business of National Assembly’
How can the state improve on criminal prosecution in the light of the loopholes in the prosecution of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha as shown in the Court of Appeal’s verdict?Well, the whole situation will have to be taken as a whole and that is only when we can have an improvement in the prosecution of cases. […]
How can the state improve on criminal prosecution in the light of the loopholes in the prosecution of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha as shown in the Court of Appeal’s verdict?
Well, the whole situation will have to be taken as a whole and that is only when we can have an improvement in the prosecution of cases. That also means that there should be an improvement in what we call investigation.
The only way you can improve on it is that the police investigators must be given all the necessary support, facilities, equipment and infrastructure to conduct a very good investigation. What we have in our country now is not too good and it is a sorry state of affairs. It is no secret that investigations by the police commence by arrest and that should not be.
If a petition is written or complaint or allegation is made against Mr. B in any police station, the first thing the Nigeria Police do is to go for the arrest of that person but that should not be the case.
They do it may be because they don’t have what it takes to work with and that is the best thing they can do.
What do you think can be done about this?
I personally think a lot can be done and it can be better done. Firstly, by conducting what is called forensic investigation and scientific investigation. If any allegation is made, the police should first of all do its own investigation without the suspect knowing that he is being investigated.
It is only where there is real prima facie case against that suspect that he should be immediately arrested. But the idea of reporting somebody at the police station and then the next thing is that less than five minutes, the police are already in the suspect’s house and also declare him wanted at the station should not be the case.
Even if the man tries to say this and that, he will still be arrested. If he is going to be released, he would be asked to provide a surety for bail and the sorry aspect of this is that if the man has been unlawfully arrested for days, where is his remedy? That is why I am advocating that the investigation aspects of criminal proceedings will have to be improved upon seriously.
This also goes to the issues of clamouring for the state police; whether to have state police or not to have state police. But to me whether we like it or not we will get there, it is really a matter of time.
Like the Major Al-Mustapha’s trial, during the trial, we all knew that most of the people must have forgotten the fact, and because we do not even have control over the police who carried out the investigation, this hampered our prosecution. We really don’t have control over them. Had it been it was a state police, we would be talking about a different thing entirely.
The state will be responsible and subject to the dictate of the Attorney-General of the state or the governor of the state who will exercise control over the Commissioner of Police in his state and this will enhance effective criminal prosecution. There is indeed a need to have local police to investigate local offences. Somebody stole a tuber of yam in a village, in either Lekki or Akodo, you need Nigeria Police to investigate that. That should not be, you need a federal institute to come and investigate a local offence. If for nothing, for the purpose of administration of criminal justice, you will need to localize the police and that is where you can get the best of investigation and the best of prosecution.
What is your position on the current debate by the Senate on child marriage through constitutional amendment?
Well, child marriage is unacceptable. How can you have child marriage in our time? Under no circumstances should we encourage that and if you are referring to the recent controversies coming out from the Senate, I will say that in the first place, the issues of marriage, either conducting marriages or dissolution of marriages should not be the business of the National Assembly.
These are local issues. What may be operative in one locality may not be operative in another. It should be entirely a local issue to be handled. That is why issues of marriage and matrimonial causes should be removed from the exclusive legislative list and I hope they will do that in this amendment they are doing.
As the Solicitor-General of Lagos State, what aspects of the 1999 Constitution would you like to be amended?
If I’m a member of the review committee and have my way; if we have all agreed that Nigeria is a federation and we want to run a federal system of government, I will advocate that local government should be removed from the constitution because local government cannot be a third-tier of government. Then, sooner or later we will be asking for the judicial arm of local government whereas by our own constitution as it is today, local government is a creation of the state so it is just like a unit or part of the state.