Criminalisation of civil disputes is prohibited by law, but unfortunately, many law enforcement agents and citizens don’t know the difference between civil and criminal matters.
Some Police Officers and other law enforcement agents genuinely receive civil complaints as criminal and go ahead to arrest persons they are not supposed to arrest.
Some citizens also go to Police Stations to lodge complaints of civil matters but they genuinely think their complaints are criminal.
Truth be told, criminalisation of civil disputes is one of the major drivers of delayed criminal justice in Nigeria.
But the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (Great Ife) in conjunction with the Centre for Distance Learning, Moro, Ile-Ife is currently running a programme to solve this problem in Nigeria.
The programme is called – *CERTIFICATE IN LEGAL STUDIES*.
It’s entirely run online – both lectures and exams.
It follows that distance is no way a barrier.
Lectures take place only on weekends.
The programme duration is 3 months and the cost is affordable.
To be eligible for admission, you only need 4 credits in your O-Level results, and the 4 credits could be any subjects.
This is a programme that all Police Officers, Civil Defence Officers, FRSC Officers, and others as well as citizens who are not lawyers, should quickly run to enrol.
The course contents are rich and detailed – from constitutional rights to legal requirements of valid contracts, laws relating to social media and the internet, to emerging family law issues, and many others.
To the best of my knowledge, OAU is the first and only Nigerian University to introduce a programme of this nature.
If you call what OAU is doing “liberalisation” or “digitalisation of legal knowledge,” you’re correct.
For more information, don’t hesitate to contact –
1. Miss Kayode, +2348163227540
2. Mr. Olayinka, +2348189199220
They are both staff of OAU.
If they don’t answer your call, please send them a message.
And you can also apply through the link at the end of this post.
When law enforcement agents and citizens are sufficiently tutored on matters that are civil as different from those that are criminal, then cases of criminalisation of civil disputes will reduce.
Oppression will also reduce in Nigeria.
Nigerian criminal justice system will work better and faster.
Persons who commit wrongs which are not criminal will no longer be sent to our prisons.
Courts will be less burdened and crowded with cases of human rights enforcement and other cases that shouldn’t be in courts, if both the law enforcement agents and citizens know and understand the differences between civil and criminal disputes.
As I type this text, thousands of Nigerians are locked up in Police cells and prisons for matters that constitute no crimes under our laws.
When people, whether innocently and deliberately, bring civil complaints to the Police as crimes, what should the Police do?
Excellent and experienced tutors who will facilitate the courses will provide guidance on best practices for law enforcement agencies in handling complaints which are not criminal.
They will also guide citizens on what to do when they are made victims of wrongful arrests or detentions as a result of criminalisation of civil disputes.
In addition, law enforcement agents will be made to understand that their knowledge of law should go beyond understanding their powers to arrest, conduct search or detain people.
They need to understand other basic and fundamental legal principles, cutting across diverse areas of law.
Nigeria will work better for everyone when legal literacy spreads far and wide.
For introducing this novel law programme for the general public and the advancement of our civic space, I say big kudos to Great Ife!
Kehinde Adegbite, PhD
14062026
