By Bartholomew Madukwe

The Nigerian Bar Association,  NBA, has  inaugurated a 10- member committee to oversee the implementation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law in the state.

Judicial symbol for justice

The committee was inaugurated at a one day Legislative Advocacy and Sensitisation workshop on the Domestication and Implimentationn of the Administration of Criminal Justice Justice Act 2015 in Bauchi State.

The committee was inaugurated by the First Vice-President of  NBA, Mr. Caleb Dajan who represented the NBA President, Mr. Abubakar  Mahmoud, SAN, at the workshop. He charged members to do their best to actualise the objectives of the ACJA in the country.

In his speech, roject co-ordinator of  NBA, MacArthur Foundation project, Mr. Abdul-Rasheed Muritala said: “The purpose of this Act is to ensure that the system of administration of criminal justice in Nigeria promotes efficient management of criminal justice institutions, speedy dispensation of justice, protection of the society from crime and protection of the rights and interests of the suspect, the defendant and the victim.

“We know from experience, that the Nigerian Criminal Justice system is predicated on complex matrix of several institutions structured along Nigeria’s expansive and equally dysfunctional federal system.    “This stated objective of the ACJA  is therefore, unattainable unless all levels of Nigeria’s federal system are aligned and work collaboratively to achieve the purpose of the Act.

“The Act states clearly in Section 2 that ‘the provisions of this Act shall apply to criminal trials for the offences established by an Act of the National Assembly and other offences punishable in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja

“It was to promote the purpose of this Act, to achieve a reformed criminal justice administration that the NBA under the leadership of  Mahmoud, SAN, prioritised the advocacy not just for the adoption and domestication of the ACJA across the country, but also to enhance the capacity of agencies and personnel involved in its implementation. We also hope to create appropriate platforms to review, share experiences and identify the difficulties encountered in the implementation of the Act so far, and articulate improvements.

“The  NBA has identified the need to promote and advocate for the domestication and implementation of ACJA, 2015 across 28 states in Nigeria.

“The project is a three-year NBA administration of criminal justice project supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which aims to strengthen the Nigerian criminal justice system and promote wide-spread criminal justice reform across Nigeria.

“The NBA seeks to use this project to improve the state-level adoption rates of the ACJA, 2015, which is a federal legislation currently domesticated in about 11 out of 36 states and the FCT of Nigeria.”

It also seeks to ensure that the innovations introduced in the ACJA are uniformly and independently adopted by all states of the federation subject to local peculiarities with the following objectives.

The administration of criminal justice project has two-pronged goals which include to    engender widespread criminal justice reform by encouraging the domestication of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015 in the outstanding 28 states to ensure uniformity in the administration of criminal justice legislation across Nigeria and promote the smooth implementation of the new criminal justice regime which the ACJA represents, by building stakeholders’ capacity within the 28 states,” Muritala stated.

Members of Bauchi State implementation committee include Muhammad M. Maidoki, Haruna D. Mohammed, Mohammed Garba, Abubakar Sulaiman Shuaibu, Yusuf Umar Gital, Maimuna I. Yusuf, Fadimatu B. Muhammad, Danlami G. Hassan and Adamu S. Gumba.

The programme was attended by members of the state judiciary, the legislature and the NBA.