Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has started moves to ensure that persons detained in Police Stations across the country get quick legal aid actions by contacting their families.
Falana SAN, at a recent engagement, revealed he was already meeting with the Attorney General of the Federation to ensure that every Police station across the country has a legal aid desk that can give poor Nigerians quick access to legal aid before getting to court.
At a Capacity Building and Workshop on Training of Prosecutors on the Effective Administration of Criminal Justice in Kano State, organized by Kurwa Hussaini in Collaboration with the State Ministry of Justice, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said, ”our people, because of ignorance, are made to suffer daily in all police stations in Nigeria. For instance, if a Nigerian gets to the police station, a Nigerian is arrested, wherever and you are taken to the police station, under the law, it is the duty of the police to contact the family that this suspect is here so that the family won’t be looking for him, thinking that maybe he’s been kidnapped.
” What we are going to discuss with the Attorney General is under the criminal justice law as well as the criminal justice act.
”Must Nigerians continue to suffer in detentions without knowing their rights and or their families knowing their whereabouts?
“You could be locked up for one week or more and there’s no contact with your family. That is no longer permissible under the law. If you have no lawyer and you are going to be interrogated by the police, you have the right as a Nigerian to demand legal representation and the police must contact the legal aid council to give you a lawyer.
“So from the police station, legal representation begins. It’s allowed. So by the time you are taken to court, that same body must also provide a lawyer for you if you don’t have the means to access justice.”
“The rich can take care of themselves. The rich can have lawyers. They will have lawyers and if you find a big man or a big woman who is rich, they will only meet me in court, I will instruct my lawyers to sue you. But for the poor, they say, God will judge. But God is saying, take advantage of the provisions made by the government to ask for justice.”
Falana further commended the Kano State government for adopting the Administration of Criminal Justice Act in 2019, noting that since then, more than any other state, Kano has been in the lead in terms of applications of the acts.
“Kano has gone ahead of other states in terms of promoting the law. For instance, Kano has become the first state to cancel or abolish the prosecution of criminal cases by police officers. In other words, all criminal cases are prosecuted in Kano by legal practitioners.”
He emphasized that in terms of training prosecutors, they must be equipped with modern gadgets, they must be trained effectively, and their conditions of service must be improved so that they can concentrate fully on their assignment.
“To lodge a complaint in a police station is problematic for the majority of our people because they may be asked to drop money to carry out investigations by the police officers. So the government will have to intervene by empowering the office of the public defender to assist the poor. You have the office of the public defender in Kano State.”
He called for the establishment of public defenders in all the 44 local governments in Kano so that the poor can have access to justice.
”And they must employ lawyers in the office of the public defender to take on the cases of the poor, just like you have the legal aid council at the federal level.
Falana said the Legal Aid Council has offices in all 36 states of the federation and in that manner, the office of the public defender must operate in every local government so that the poor who are denied justice, access to justice, the poor, who want to fight cases in court but lack the economic well-being, can complain to the office of the public defender. And that office will assign lawyers to take on the cases.
