Commandant General, NSCDC, Associate Professor Ahmed Audi, middle, flanked by Dr. Tersoo Shaapera, Head NSCDC forensics unit and book author, right, and his wife Mrs. Shaapera, left.
To ease the difficulty in solving criminal cases in courtrooms and in criminal investigations, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, (NSCDC), has called for more application of forensic evidence in Nigeria’s criminal justice delivery.
Commandant General, (CG), of the Corps, Associate Professor Ahmed Audi, said forensic evidence has become one of the most effective ways of providing hard evidence during criminal court cases and is a sure means of solving such cases without waste of time.
The CG made this known during the launch of a book titled ‘Forensic psychology, A Pathway to Justice’ by the NSCDC Head of Forensics Unit, Dr Tersoo Shaapera, yesterday in Abuja.
He pointed out that the book highlights forensics’ central role in the investigation and as a veritable resource in tackling crime using hard evidence, and will also go a long way in ensuring better justice delivery across courtrooms in Nigeria.
“The world is driven by the knowledge that was why when we can in, we establish policies that will encourage personnel to leverage on that and develop themselves in terms of academic knowledge and many of them have enrolled for masters and PhD courses and part of the results is what we are witnessing now in the form of contribution to the body of knowledge in forensics.
“The book is written at a time that it is really needed, it is central and germaine to the existence of especially security agencies as the book is highly recommended to personnel involved in investigations,” he explained.
Representative of the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola and Director of Joint Services in the ministry, Peter Egbedo, said that the book is a huge contribution to the body of knowledge, justice and investigation.
The author of the book, Dr Shaapera pointed the drive to share forensics knowledge through his literature contribution stems from the realisation that two key professionals, the lawyer and psychologist must work together for efficient justice delivery.
He said “Psychologists have studied human behaviour with the view of solving human problems while the laws are there to guide us on how to solve these problems and to govern us.
“In the context of the criminal justice system, an aspect that we have taken care of here is the questioning styles for eyewitnesses and we hope this will enrich the security system in solving crimes.
“Whatever we do in forensics, the end user is the courtroom and what we try to present in the book is that questioning styles have an impact on the reliability and validity of eyewitnesses’ testament so we need to engage forensics psychologists for a proper functioning of the justice system in Nigeria,” he adds.
the guardian