A Two Day Step – Down Training Workshop for officers of the Nigeria Police officers on the Provisions of ACJA 2015 Zone 3 and Zone 5 (Adamawa, Gombe and Taraba States and Edo, Delta and Bayelsa States respectively).

The objective of the training
workshop is to improve police professionalism and service delivery and improve
the knowledge, technical capacity and skills of law enforcement and security
personnel to effectively understand and play their roles in the implementation
of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015.

In Adamawa State, the specialized
training which held on the 22nd and 23rd of January 2020 at Madugu Rockview
Hotels, No 10 rock heaven avenue, Behind Government House, Yola aimed at
building the capacity of twenty police investigators and prosecutors drawn from
Zone 3 Police Headquarters (Adamawa, Gombe and Taraba States).  The training workshop was declared open by
the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 3, AIG Alhaji Abubakar, M. He
charged course participants to immerse themselves in the curriculum and
endeavour to embrace the step-down methodology with a view to also imparting
the same training to their colleagues within their commands and duty stations.
The training commenced with the initial pre test exercise. Notably, only one
police officer indicated he is aware about the ACJA and its provisions. This
portends a serious gap in knowledge among the police officers, and hence the
need for timely intervention designed and operationalized by CLEEN Foundation
through the training workshops. The training which lasted for two days consist
of paper presentations, group work and interactive sessions facilitated by
seasoned police officers who had benefitted from the Training of Trainers (TOT)
national training held in Abuja in October 2019. The sessions are;

In Edo, the training held at Homeville
Plus Hotel, Etete, Benin city, Edo state where twenty (20) police investigators
and prosecutors drawn from Zone 5 Headquarters were trained.

The sessions are;

1. Evidence
   Collection, Processing and Presentation
2. Implementation
   of The ACJA 2015 Search, Arrest and Detention Regime
3. Inter-Agency
   Collaboration and Coordination Requirement Under ACJA
4. Contextual and Environmental Limitations to the
   implementation of the ACJA and Strategies for Mitigation
5. Developing
   Tailored Strategies for Cascading Training and Capacity

The workshop concluded with
feedback and interactive session wherein course participants suggested
practical strategies to drive the routine ACJA training at the divisional levels.
These include:

1. Nomination
   of Police Officers from state commands as knowledge champions for the
   coordination of training on ACJA.
2. These
   officers must be integrated across the three states within the zone for
   constant cross fertilization of ideas and knowledge. This becomes pivotal as
   the policing peculiarities vary from state to state.
3. The
   course participant requested that copies of ACJA must be made available to all
   the police officers across the various command. On this note the ACJA mobile
   app became handy as all the course participants installed the apps on the
   phones.

Lastly, the post workshop test administered to the police officers shows that at the end of the training the entire 40 officers indicated they have become knowledgeable and fully aware about the provisions of the ACJA. The participant charted a course for the step down training in their various divisions and appointed three state coordinators who would continue to interface with CLEEN Foundation on subsequent activities taking on the ACJA at their divisional levels. The lead faculty on the workshop in Adamawa- DSP Yusuf Adamu Mohammed lauded the efforts of CLEEN Foundation and McArthur Foundation towards justice sector reform in Nigeria and affirmed that the police officers will return to the various stations with confidence in their newly acquired knowledge and skills and more importantly a commitment to pass on the knowledge to others and demonstrated competence and diligent prosecution of cases in full compliance with the ACJA.