By Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Presidency has decried the practice by officers of the Nigeria Police Force who still request money for bail from innocent Nigerians, despite the measures put in place to improve the bail process.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha, disclosed this Thursday at a roundtable to validate the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) study on mapping the process of obtaining bail at the Nigeria police station, with the theme: “Improving the Nigeria Police Force Bail is Free Process.”
Mustapha, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Olusegun Adekunle, said that the current administration was making concerted efforts to establish at least one police forensic laboratory in each of the six geo-political zones of the country to enhance police investigation capacity and also establish database in all police formations to track detainees in their custody.
According to him, “It is important to point out that the concept of bail is largely misunderstood in Nigeria and this is because a lot of Nigerians believe that once an accused person who is being tried or investigated for an offence is released on bail, this automatically signifies the end of the matter. These set of Nigerians, therefore, feel that bail applications must always be opposed whenever an accused person makes an application for bail.â€
Mustapha noted that in order to sanitise and improve the ‘bail’ process at the Nigeria Police station, the present administration through the Inspector General of Police (IG) relaunched the ‘Bail is Free Campaign’ across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Details later…
