The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) says it was repositioning its officers and men to professionally implement the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law in the prosecution of cases whether criminal or civil.

Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Okon Effiong, who said this at a Workshop on Implementation of the ACJL of 2011 for Tactical Teams and Investigating Police Officers (IPOs) on Thursday, December 8, 2022 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said the Command embarked on training and re-training of its personnel to enhance its operations in services delivery to the public.

He urged the participants to get acquainted with the importance, features and essentials of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL) of 2011 in line with global best practice and in concert with extant laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with regards to case management, diligent prosecution and due diligence.

“Our cases in court are thrown out because severally IPOs don’t appear in court to give evidence in most cases presented to the court by the police or thrown out of court for want of time or prosecution or maybe our lawyers are not doing their best professionally and should not be allowed to remain on that level of ignorance continually.”

He enumerated policies and measures put in place by the Police hierarchy to address the situation, stressing that “the management in trying to move forward and adopt best practices packaged this workshop to sharpen your competencies and skills”, warning that the training programme should not be regarded as a jamboree”.

The Rivers State Commissioner of Police explained that the Command expended efforts to ensure that key officers drawn from critical teams across various divisions in the State were invited as resource persons with a view to making the workshop advantageous to the participants.

“We have gone out to invite eminent personalities to handle the various topics on essentials of the ACJL to make your work effective.”

“Our expectations are that at the end of the workshop, we will be able to go back to decimate the information and knowledge to those our colleagues who are not here.”

He enjoined them to replicate these workshops at divisional levels and also be the resource persons for the training in their respective divisions by being attentive to all the deliberations, noting that no knowledge is a waste.

“Even if you think you have done the training before, I can assure you that there must be something new you will learn today by being attentive while the workshops lasts.”