General
Nigerian Police Have Not Used Fingerprints in 53 Years—Fola Arthur-Worrey
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The reluctance of Nigerian policemen to conduct proper basic investigations into criminal cases is a major reason they drag unnecessarily, and in many instances, get dismissed on grounds of lack of diligent prosecution, a former Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) and Solicitor-General of Lagos State, Mr Fola Arthur-Worrey has said.
He said that police officers were so accustomed to not going through the standard investigative process that all efforts to change their approach to doing things the right way have failed so far.
Addressing students at the launch of The Halogen School of Security Management & Technology, (HSSM&T)’s maiden Professional MBA in Security Management programme, (in partnership with Babcock University) the ex-prosecutor said, “The standard approach when someone is arrested is you take his photograph, then you take his fingerprints and then his height for the purpose of identification but I was DPP for two years and I didn’t see a single photograph in any file which I thought was weird.
“How do you find out whether this person has been involved in a prior for example? The most fundamental element of criminal investigation, is fingerprinting yet the last case where fingerprints were used to convict in a Nigerian court was in 1964.
“This was the case of a burglar who left his fingerprints on the louvre of the house he went to burgle. We have tried to get the Police to use anything, even if it’s the old model of pads and paper to document fingerprints but they just don’t want it anymore.”
Mr Arthur-Worrey decried the dearth of experts in the force, noting that it wasn’t always this bad with Nigerian Policemen as he recalled with nostalgia, his days as a public prosecutor in Lagos when according to him, Police Officers carried out their duties wonderfully.
He said, “We had wonderful experts in every field. We had great facilities like the lab in Oshodi which I relied on when I was a prosecutor in the early eighties. They were good at blood work, they were good at pathology and they knew their stuff. Then the Police had the best ballistician, I knew a guy who was a handwriting analyst, trained in Wales, he used to come to court in his blazer and he just used to intimidate the defense counsel. He was just good.
“Nobody does ballistics anymore. When last did you hear of a case that involved ballistics, unlike Oscar Pistorious’ case where the emphasis was on the science of it. It underscores the damage being done by the conflation of security with law enforcement.”
He commended the HSSM&T for taking the initiative as the first to offer a Master’s degree in Security Management in a University setting. He noted that programmes uniquely tailored to solve problems of security and law enforcement were long overdue as Nigerians could simply no longer depend on the Police alone.
He also urged the Halogen Security Company to go a step further as industry leaders to offer professional support to the Police in law enforcement through the deployment of different levels of scientific private detective strategies including fingerprint lifting/analysis, surveillance, evidence collection and preservation and many more.
Tracing the origin of the decline in Police efficiency, Mr Arthur-Worrey averred that the root of the problem was the military rule, which paid more attention to ‘regime security’, undermining the critical element of law enforcement in the process. This, he said, has systematically eroded the capacity of Nigerian policemen over the years.
“We eroded police capacity because of military rule, and its own perception of security and its inability to distinguish between security and law enforcement. This is a critical understanding.
“When we say national security in Africa, we mean to say ‘regime security’, they’re not really concerned with the regular people so all the resources go to the regime security which is why the convoy culture has become so dominant, taking one third of armed policemen off the streets into the houses, vehicles etcetera of not just the politically exposed persons (PEPs) but also private people, Chinese etc. Some people can just wander into the CP’s office and say ‘I need a policeman’ he will quickly acquiesce and those policemen love it. This is a deemphasise on law enforcement which is a very demanding, meticulous area that leads to convictions in court,” Mr Arthur-Worrey submitted.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Dangote oil refinery has commenced operating its polypropylene facility in Lagos.
Polypropylene is a thermoplastic polymer that is commonly used in plastic packaging, textiles, reusable shopping bags, surgical equipment, household chairs, and kitchen utensils.
According to S&P Global, the starting up of Dangote’s 830,000 metric tonnes per year polypropylene site was one of the last outstanding milestones for the oil refining and petrochemical complex in its commissioning sequence, which has been taking place since January 2024.
“Polypropylene production has now started, with supplies being distributed in 25kg bags, and has already threatened to upend the domestic market,” two market sources had told Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights.
When it becomes operational, the Dangote facility is set to become Africa’s largest polypropylene production site, producing from two polypropylene units with capacities of 500,000 metric tonnes per year and 330,000 metric tonnes per year.
The President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, previously set out hopes that the complex would fully cover some 250,000 metric tonnes per year of domestic demand for polypropylene.
S&P Global cited that the new capacity could quickly capture market share in the existing polypropylene homopolymer market, which has so far been concentrated at Indorama Eleme’s Port Harcourt refinery in Nigeria and drawn imports from the Middle East.
The company had previously said its $2 billion petrochemical plant located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos State, is designed to produce 77 different high-performance grades of polypropylene in the country.
With a turnover of $1.2 billion, the Dangote Petrochemical plant, situated alongside the Dangote Refinery, is positioned to cater to the demands of the growing plastic processing downstream industries, not only in Africa but also in other parts of the world.
Speaking then, Mr Devakumar Edwin, now the Vice President of Dangote Industries Limited, said the Dangote Petrochemical will drive massive investment in the downstream industries, generating huge value addition in the country, creating employment, increasing tax revenues, reducing foreign exchange outflow, and increasing the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
“We have 77 types of polypropylene, which can be used for different purposes, and we can produce it from our petrochemical plant. Currently, the plant is capable of producing about 900,000 tonnes of polypropylene per annum. Our Petrochemical plant should be the biggest in Africa,” he said.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 governorship election in Lagos State, Mr Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, has announced his return to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Mr Adediran, along with his supporters, switched back to the ruling party on Monday at a media briefing held at Liberty Place, Adeniyi Jones Street, Ikeja, Lagos.
This comes after a closed-door meeting between Jandor and President Bola Tinubu in Aso Rock, Abuja last week, where undisclosed matters were discussed.
Jandor previously resigned from the PDP, citing indiscipline and anti-party activities, betrayal by the party leadership on the eve of the Lagos governorship election.
He also lamented false claims of an alliance that misled PDP supporters into voting for another candidate, presumably the candidate of the Labour Party.
Following his resignation from the opposition party, Mr Adediran, who was previously a member of the ruling party in the state, met President Tinubu in Abuja to inform him of his decision to return to his initial political family.
Before meeting with Mr Tinubu, Jandor also held talks with several political leaders, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former military President Ibrahim Babangida, former Head of State General Abdulsalami Abubakar and 2023 SDP Presidential Candidate, Mr Adewole Adebayo.
Jandor ran alongside popular Nigerian actress, Ms Funke Akindele, but they came third at the 2023 Lagos polls after the incumbent, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, polled a total of 762,134 votes to emerge the winner of the contest.
The candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, polled 312,329 votes, while the PDP candidate scored 62,449 votes.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Rivers State House of Assembly may have commenced the process of removing Governor Siminalayi Fubara from office.
This is because the legislative arm of government in the state has served a notice of alleged misconduct against Mr Fubara and his deputy, Mrs Ngozi Odu.
The Governor had been at loggerheads with a faction of the parliament in the past months, especially because of his fallout with his political godfather and predecessor, Mr Nyesom Wike, who is currently the Minister of the FCT.
Last week, after a Supreme Court judgment, Mr Fubara went to re-present the 2025 budget to the Rivers Assembly led by Mr Martin Amaewhule, but he was locked out.
Last Friday, the Assembly, which has 27 members loyal to Mr Wike, indefinitely adjourned plenary.
In a notice obtained by Channels Television, the state parliament said the decision to serve the Governor the notice was in line with the Nigerian Constitution.
“In compliance with Section 188 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and other extant laws, we the undersigned members of the Rivers State House of Assembly hereby forward to you a Notice of Gross Misconduct by the Deputy Governor of Rivers State in the performance of the functions of her office,” the notice read.
Recall that last week, during a media chat, Mr Wike disclosed that heavy would not fall if his successor is impeached by the Rivers Assembly.
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