A Coercive Force-Nigeria's Police

Salisu Suleiman writes about a service in dire need of reform:

The Nigeria police was established as a coercive arm of the British colonialists and it is yet to free itself of that mentality. The language it speaks best is the language of force and violence. For the police, it is always ‘we’ against ‘them’. Similarly, criminal law in the country is mostly antiquated. The penal code was drafted in 1903, and bears little or no bearing to the social realities in Nigeria today. Our Arbitration laws are so outdated that legal practitioners prefer to take arbitration cases to other countries. Despite the advancements witnessed in the medical sciences in the last half century, the country’s Pharmacy Act has not changed in the nearly 50 years. Forensic science is primeval. Despite the fact that DNA evidence is regarded as nearly 100 percent accurate, it hardly appears anywhere in our statues.