Nigeria Police and Forensic Criminal Investigations: A Review of Some Critical Issues

Utilisation of forensic science methods in criminal investigations is gaining acceptance partly because its application helps maximize objectivity and reliability of the investigation process. This could also be one of the reasons for the Nigeria Police to adopt forensic science in criminal investigations. However, looking at the nature and rate of crime being reported to the police and successful court trials; there seems to be challenges within the police system itself with regards to using forensic methods in the investigation of crimes. In order to better understand these challenges, this paper presents a summative review of works related to forensic criminal investigations and policing in Nigeria. Five search engines/databases: Google scholar, Pubmed, Sciencedirect, Researchgate and Academia were used to source materials for the review. Two search phrases, 'forensic science in Nigeria' and 'forensic science and Nigeria police', were used as keywords. Challenges were identified from the review; these were inadequate forensic facilities, limited utilisation offorensic methods, the dearth ofresearch on perception as well as the skills of the Nigeria police in utilizing forensic science. It is therefore recommended that: more forensic facilities should be provided to the police and that empirical research should be conducted to explore further on the challenges.