In a few weeks or months to come, the Lagos State Government-owned forensic science/DNA laboratory will come on stream. It’s touted to be a state-of-the-art scientic facility meant to aid the law in the detection of crimes, apprehension of criminals and the exoneration of the innocent.

The world of forensic science is an interesting one, as we’ll see immediately the facility begins to impact on the way cases are handled in the court of law.
The Lagos State Government-owned facility, however, will not be the first of its type in the country; there had been one located somewhere in Ikoyi, Lagos, which, unfortunately, has been largely underutilised and had, possibly, been discarded. But late last year, another one owned by the Nigeria Police Force went into operation.

It’s not the number of forensic science facilities that are located anywhere that counts but how effectively they’re put into use and how much also the general public knows about their workings. Unless there is this adequate awareness in this respect, the most advanced facility in the world would end up being a white elephant project, and the Nigerian landscape is littered with such projects. And because of the enormous cost at which forensic labs are put in place and the critical role they’re meant to play in the dispensation of justice, it’s important that they’re not allowed to become white elephant projects.

The steps towards ensuring this, begin with judicious creation of awareness about their workings and the general attitude the public is expected to develop and maintain to derive the full benefits. The murder of Engineer Funsho Williams and other high-profile killings in the country would not have gone unsolved as they did if a forensic science facility had been available at the time the murders took place. Ex-Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, was murdered in the presence of his family, who were understood to have been locked up in another room while the killers snuffed life out of the then serving minister.

Williams was met alone in his house and murdered in cold blood.

In the case of Ige, two elements would have aided investigation – the assailants would have had their footwear marks, finger marks and other evidence of contact with the scene littering the scene. The other element that would have been put into good use is a description of the assailant(s) as would have been given by the eyewitnesses (Ige’s beleaguered family).
This would have led to the arrest of a good number of suspects whose features might have fitted the description given by the eyewitnesses. The eyewitnesses would then have had the chance to pinpoint the actual perpetrators in an identification parade that would have followed. Although this is not without some inherent problems.

It’s the discovery, reporter and handling of the murder of Williams that particularly make adequate sensitization of the public to the workings of forensic science sine qua non for the effective running of a forensic science/DNA laboratory facility.

It should be recalled that experts from the British police were called into the country to do a forensic processing of the crime scene. When the experts came they discovered there was nothing they could do in the direction of detecting and arresting the perpetrators. Why? So much contamination of the crime scene had taken place since the discovery of the crime up to the arrival of the experts.

The first step in the direction of finding the killers would have been the preservation of the crime scene, which should have been done by early responders to the discovery of the crime, naturally men of the Nigeria Police Force, even if they lacked the means of effecting the remaining steps. A systematic processing of the scene by early responders would have prevented the contamination. This processing is summarised in a 5-step approach known as controlling (of the crowd attracted to the scene), preserving (of whatever evidence the perpetrators must have left behind), recording (of the general state of the scene), recovering (of whatever tool or implement they left behind), and reconstruction of how things possibly happened, and when, and by who, and how, etc), all of the steps summarised in the acronym ‘COPRRR’.

Even if the early responders lacked the means of implementing the other steps, their efforts at controlling and preserving would have aided the British police in carrying out the remaining steps. The scene of the murder of Williams was not preserved, hence whatever trace the perpetrators might have left behind as silent witness against them had been irredeemably contaminated by the fingermarks, footwear marks and other confused impressions that the huge crowd that surged there left behind. This made the lifting of the traces deposited by the killers difficult to isolate, lift and examine in a forensic laboratory.

So, the first lesson to be learnt by the public on the workings of a forensic science in detecting and arresting criminals is that, once a crime is detected in a scene, movement in and around the scene should be minimised, likewise touching of the scene and its constituents until the police are called in to effect the five-point processing of the scene – control, preserve, record, recover and reconstruct.

Dawodu, a forensic scientist, writes from Lagos

"Exciting news! TheNigeriaLawyer is now on WhatsApp Channels 🚀 Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest legal insights!" Click here! ....................................................................................................................... Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material and other digital content on this website, in whole or in part, without express and written permission from TheNigeriaLawyer, is strictly prohibited _________________________________________________________________ [Register Now] ILA Nigeria Branch Marks 10 Years With Infrastructure Financing As Theme For 7th Annual Conference The International Law Association - Nigeria Branch 7th annual conference on public-private partnerships for sustainable infrastructure financing, April 4-5 in Abuja. Details: https://ilanigeria.org.ng/conference _________________________________________________________________

NIALS' Compendia Series: Your One-Stop Solution For Navigating Nigerian Laws (2004-2023)

Email: info@nials.edu.ng, tugomak@yahoo.co.uk, Contact: For Inquiry and information, kindly contact, NIALS Director of Marketing: +2348074128732, +2348100363602.