The Nigeria Police Force has ordered a streamlining of all police investigative processes, to prevent duplication of investigation.
The Inspector General of police, Usman Baba, warned against indiscrimate transfer of cases initiated by individuals and groups, who have been indicted in initial investigations as a way to frustrate diligent investigation process and truncate criminal justice delivery.
The Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, disclosed this in a statement, saying the IGP gave the directives while reviewing and dealing with files/cases in response to complaints on indiscriminate transfers of cases from Zonal/State Commands and other investigative units of the Force by operatives of the Force Criminal Investigations Department, Force Intelligence Bureau and other Force headquarters-based investigation outfits under the guise of re-investigation at the prompting of indicted parties.
Leadership reported that Adejobi stated, that the situation has often given rise to parallel investigations by multiple units leading to conflicting arrests of parties and different outcomes even when such matters have been conclusively investigated and charged to court.
Baba appealed to Nigerians to cooperate with the police leadership in its bid to sanitise the process and strengthen its criminal justice system.
While he also warned that officers found culpable of colluding with lawyers of, or indicted parties, to abuse police investigative process will be sanctioned accordingly.
