Police Inspector Denies Application of ACJA in Nigeria
A Police Inspector Orankan Balogun who has worked with the Nigerian Police Force for twenty two years has claimed ignorance of the application of the administration Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) enacted into law in 2015 to secure confessional statements from the suspect by the Police either in the presence of his lawyer or recording the statement with an audio-visual device in the absence of his lawyer.
He made the claim while giving evidence before the Ogun State Judicial Panel of Investigation on Police brutality sitting at the Magistrate court 1, Isabo Abeokuta.
This was at the instance of a petition submitted before the panel by Gbenga Kehinde to query his unlawful arrest and detension for forty seven days with his friends Rafiu Bena, Emmanuel David and Saheed Adesanya for allegedly stealing fishes worth Sixty three million naira at a fish farm in Imagbon area of Ijebu Ode
He explained that they were taken to Magbon SARS Office in Abeokuta where they were detained and allegedly tortured severely daily for over ten days and they were coerced to sign statements obtained from them under duress
Giving Evidence during cross examination, Inspector Balogun admitted the arrest of the suspects and that he also locked them up for forty seven days.
He however denied allegation of torture, brutality and obtaining their Statements under duress
The Chairman of the Panel, Justice Solomon Olugbemi maintained that both the Administration criminal Justice Act of 2015 and the Administration of Criminal Justice and Other Allied Matters laws Ogun State, 2017 are applicable in obtaining statements from the suspects by the Police.
