The Analysis of Nigerian Police Report (Statement): Problems and Solutions: (Forensic Linguistics Perspectives)

Abstract

The conventional practice in Nigerian court cases begin with Police investigative reports (statement) in the police stations (oral/written) to the level of filing, presenting and hearing at different stages of court proceedings, is in the state of complexity as it may involve some logical terms used in committing crime that need to be clearly understood by the stakeholders. This indicates the relevance of Forensic Linguistics (FL) in tackling complex linguistic issues in court cases. As such, the present study is set to examine some inconsistencies in police report that may hinder the validity of the report or may even render it null and void. The study also is aim to provide the significant role of forensic linguist in crime solving. The sample to use in the study comprises of police statements gathered from various police stations via random sampling procedure. This will cover some selected police stations from metropolitan area of Kano, Jigawa and Katsina States where possible. The linguistic evidences are the variables extracted from the data collected to study and analyzed. Descriptive analysis method (DAM) is used to presents what is realized from the data collected. As established that language data and its usage in crimes are the basic evidences that lead to judgment. However, in police statement problems such as inconsistencies, redundancy, linguistic deviations, improper writing, and incompetence in the language use are the major issues that hinder the validity of the statement. In addition to that, some statements are taking from the suspect under duress. The study suggest special training in use of language in statement and introductory lesson on Forensic linguistic to police officers as vital tool in curtailing the major occurring problems in police investigative report.