MURDER INVESTIGATION IN NIGERIA: IMPLICATION FOR FORENSIC SCIENCE APPLICATION

There is an illicit drug/substance abuse problem in Nigeria, especially among youths. This morphed when cadets of the Nigeria Police Academy were arrested by the drug law enforcement agency for having illicit drugs. This spurred our study's objectives. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, police cadets identified, through snowball sampling technique, to be involved in illicit drug/substance abuse were interviewed on causes of drug/substance abuse among cadets; accessibility to illicit drugs; perceptions on the effectiveness of punitive measures; effects on academic performance, police training, and interpersonal relationship. Findings are discussed in line with extant literature and inferences indicate the important need for a robust drug/substance use screening exercise for entrants into the Academy. Advocacy is made for the engagement of preventive measures which focus more on dissuading this behaviour through counselling and educational enlightenment initiatives.

Despite the existence of formal Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for homicide investigation, little is known about how these procedures are implemented in resource-constrained policing environments. This study explores the disconnection between formally prescribed homicide investigation procedures and everyday investigative practice within the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). Guided by Meyer and Rowan’s institutional theory and Lipsky’s street-level bureaucracy theory, the study employed a qualitative research design involving semi-structured interviews with 15 experienced homicide investigators drawn from the Homicide Sections of the Lagos State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) and the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), Lagos. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings revealed three interrelated themes: (1) resource constraints and investigative improvisation; (2) sociocultural and religious practices; and (3) organisational culture and homicide investigative practice. Participants described how chronic shortages of personnel, operational funding, logistics, and forensic resources routinely necessitated discretionary decision-making and informal investigative practices. Deeply rooted cultural and religious beliefs, particularly those surrounding postmortem examinations, further constrained the application of standard investigative procedures. The findings also demonstrate that organisational norms and institutional practices frequently diverged from formal procedural expectations, resulting in routine procedural adaptations. Rather than representing individual non-compliance, these departures reflect institutional decoupling in which frontline investigators adapt their practices to sustain investigations under structural constraints. The study contributes to the literature on policing in resource-constrained settings by demonstrating how institutional conditions shape investigative practice. It argues that improving homicide investigations requires not only stronger procedural guidance but also sustained investment in forensic infrastructure, operational resources, personnel development, and organisational accountability to reduce the persistent gap between policy and practice.

Community policing is a proactive approach to policing as against traditional policing approach which is reactive in nature. This study examines the role of community policing in crime control in Epe Local Government Area of Lagos State. It employed a mixed method of data collection using questionnaire and in-depth interview (IDI) as its research instrument due to the collaborative nature of the study. The quantitative data elicited through questionnaire were analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences version 23 to generate frequency tables, percentages, chi-square goodness-of-fit to test the statistical significance of responses provided by the respondents, while the qualitative data generated with the aid of in-depth interviews were transcribed, organised, cleaned and analysed to complement the quantitative data. The study’s findings showed that police-public partnership though has helped the police in controlling crime to some extent but more still needs to be done as some community members are still critical of the police. Additionally, implementation of community policing in Epe is still being bedevilled with some challenges such as inadequate training, negative police perceptions, lack of modern crime gadgets, bribery and corrupt practices, inadequate marine policemen among others. The study recommends that members of the public should be more sensitised on the need to partner with the police; and, that there is need to recruit more policemen and train them in accordance with international best practices.