An Appraisal of the Police in Criminal Prosecution under the Nigerian Law

Criminal prosecution is the exercise of sovereign power of the state to initiate prosecutorial proceedings. This sovereign power, a public power, is delegated officially to federal and state investigating agencies including the police for prosecution of criminal cases. This paper examined the legal framework and professional practices on criminal investigation and policing in Nigeria. These were with a view to understanding the conceptual meaning, nature and scope of criminal prosecution undertaken by the police in Nigeria. The study relied on primary and secondary sources of information. The primary source included unstructured interviews with relevant authorities, judicial decisions, state and federal laws governing criminal prosecution in Nigeria, which comprise the Nigerian Constitution, the police enabling law, the Nigeria Police Act, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, with other extant substantive and procedural penal laws. The secondary source of information consisted of books, journal articles, conference proceedings, newspaper publications and the internet. Data collected were subjected to content analysis. The study found that, although the Nigeria Police is a conferee of enormous sovereign prosecutorial powers donated by the Nigerian and other extant laws in Nigeria, the nature and extent of its power of criminal prosecution are limited by the law. It further found that, though the police are empowered to prosecute in all courts in Nigeria, for any police officer to exercise prosecutorial power at the superior courts, he or she must be a qualified legal practitioner in consonance with the provisions of the Nigerian Legal Practitioner Act. The paper, therefore, insisted that, unless the police authorities commence massive recruitment of trained lawyers into the Force, realising its noble objective in public prosecution, which is its cardinal constitutional role, may remain a mirage. This paper, therefore, recommended the increase of the admission quota at the Nigerian Law School for Police Academy, Wudil, Kano.