Professor of Public Law Professor Abdulkarim Abubakar Kana of Nasarawa State University Keffi have identified that lack of security personnel, especially the police in implementing the judicial verdict of law such as the apprehension of law offenders, has retarded the effectiveness of law implementation in Nigeria.
Making this assertion recently during the 52nd Inaugural lecture of Nasarawa State University Keffi with the theme: Why laws fail; analyzing the shortcomings of Nigerian laws, the implications for Justice pointed out that the number of policemen are inadequate to cover the masses.
“A situation whereby we have 400 Policemen deployed to Keffi, Lafia, Akwanga Division, then 200 are deployed for very important personalities (VIPs) Governor, Deputy Governor, Senators, House of Representative members, House of Assembly members, Judges etc and other sectors. Then the police are reduced from carrying out essential functions of implementing the laws”.
Professor Abdulkarim Abubakar Kana advocated that if there was enough security personnel to curb activities of kidnappers, the capital punishment law enacted against kidnappers could have worked effectively, which could have wiped out the sporadic activities of kidnappers in Nasarawa State.
He also identified cultural factors as hinderances to access to justice and the implementation of the law, by cultural factors he mean traditional norms and values which clash with formal legal principles leading to a paradox where customary law is favoured over statutory laws in every communities. Others he explained is lack of judicial independence, while the Nigeria constitution stipulates the principle of judicial independence that would establish a framework that will protect judges from political interference the executive arm of government continue to determine the appointment of Judges and Judiciary workers, and denied the judiciary of their financial autonomy.
He opined that the constitutional framework whereby it is imperative to ensure that the civil society have a clear access to interact with legal institutions, with the communities, non-governmental organization (NGOs) and its advocacy groups, the government unfortunately hampers and resists such movements, Thus negating the constitutional provision that articulates the participation of citizens in governance.
He informed that in the context of Nigeria, non-governmental organization (NGOs) play a pivotal role in the promotion of legal reform, which acts as the catalysts for socio political and economic change.
These NGOs which range from local grassroots initiatives to international agencies, tilts their efforts towards addressing legal shortcomings and advocating for justice and human rights in a legal system characterized by inefficiency corruption and inadequate in enforcement.
Professor kana is also the a National legal Adviser to the ruling All Progressive Congress(APC) accused the monster called corruption as the bane of ineffective implementation of Nigerian Laws.
A situation were resources earmarked for the police and the judicial processes are diverted bringing down the failure of law implementation.