Policing Reform efforts in Nigeria through the Justice for All Programme
One component of the Nigeria Justice For All (J4A) Programme focuses on reforming the formal and informal organisations that deliver policing services. Analysing state and federal level interventions to improve community security, the case study identifies five strategic lessons and their implications for other police reform focused programmatic work.
The focus in this case study is policing reform funded by the UK government under the Justice for All (J4A) Nigeria Programme, concentrating on the reforming of all organisations and groups that are involved in the delivery of policing. Formal policing in Nigeria is delivered by the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) but there are also significant numbers of informal voluntary policing groups throughout the country. The J4A log-frame aimed at the impact of improved personal security and access to justice and an outcome of improved capacity, accountability and responsiveness of key safety and security organisations. The methodology was based on the Capacity, Accountability and Responsiveness (CAR) model.
State-Level Interventions range from Legal Aid Schemes to Community Accountability Forums and public presentations. They are developed by beneficiary organisations and groups with J4A technical assistance. The achievements and impact of these interventions are listed and discussed at the state-level.
Federal interventions were centred on improving the accountability of the NPF to statutory bodies, such as the Police Service Commission, Public Complaints Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, the Ministry of Interior and appropriate non-statutory Oversight Bodies such as Civil Society Organisations. J4A supported and worked with oversight bodies on redesign and capacity building of complaints processes and systems.
Based on the analysis of interventions at the state and federal levels, this case study identifies five strategic lessons and their implications for other programmatic work. The lessons are on the importance of Presidential oversight and commitment, the need for a generational commitment, the significance of establishing integrated clusters of interventions, the need to carefully craft the approaches and the indispensability of a strong, clear, detailed and coherent theory of change, that is revised as lessons were learned.