Sometime between the 28^th to the 30^th of April, 2014 the Nigeria Police Force Enugu State Command organised and held a 3 day retreat for senior police officers in the state supported by J4A/PRAWA.

The essence of the retreat was to review the activities carried out under the speeding up police investigations sub-project in Enugu State and to also identify strategies to enhance the impact and sustainability of the earlier intervention in line with the overall mandate of the Nigeria Police Force. The idea of the retreat was brought about by the temporary withdrawal of its support to the NPF by J4A under the DFID funded sub-project “Speeding Up Police Investigations”.

The 3 day event which held at Top 10 International Hotel Golf Estate Enugu had in attendance senior police officers in the state while members of the neighbourhood watch from the different communities in the state participated on the day 2 of the event.

The totality of the activities carried out during the retreat was grouped into 10 sessions of 3/4 sessions per day. The retreat however commenced with the rendition of the National Anthem followed by opening prayers and introductions made by the Police Public Relations Officer Mr. Ebele Amarizu. The Commissioner of Police Enugu State Command, Abubakar Adamu Mohammed delivered his welcome address wherein he noted that this is about the first time in history that senior police officers are coming together towards achieving an effective and a perfect criminal justice system. He further acknowledged that a lot has been done in the past concerning speeding up criminal investigations however, the purpose of the retreat is to look at what has been done so far and to try and find out what worked and what did not work. In the end he stressed that lack of monopoly of knowledge is the reason why the NPF is seeking partners to come and partner with them and then urged the officers to open their minds in the course of the retreat.

Jeff Ansell, Technical Lead & Monitoring and Evaluation, J4A Programme who gave the special remarks did a brief overview of the Justice for All programme and also stressed on the urgent need for the NPF to be able to carry out effective investigation including being able to gather evidence and present same such that guilty persons are convicted and the innocent if at all are not to stay longer than they should not. Mr. Godwin Odo the J4A Component 4 Manager gave an overview of the Speeding Up Criminal Justice administration as it relates to awaiting trial inmates.

The Executive Director of PRAWA, Dr. (Mrs) Uju Agomoh, while giving the objectives and structure of the retreat commended the Commissioner of police for convening the retreat, gave a rundown of activities implemented so far under the Speeding Up Investigations sub-project and then stressed on the importance of ensuring that the impact of the project outlives the duration of the project. Thereafter, the opening session was concluded with goodwill messages from invited guests ; a representative from the Nigeria Prison Service Enugu, a representative from the Nigeria Immigrations, the Director of Public Prosecution, Mr. Victor Emeribe for the Hon. Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Enugu State and the Coordinator, Enugu State Justice Reform Team, Mrs. A.J. Offiah(SAN).

Mr. Lawrence Alobi, Commissioner of Police (rtd) took participants through the session on the rationale, scope and possibilities of enhancing the speed and quality of police criminal investigations; the session on Case Management System, Monitoring / Tracking Performance and other relevant management tools was handled by Jeff Ansell, Technical Lead & Monitoring and Evaluation, J4A; Dr. Uju Agomoh ED. PRAWA and Project Manager Speeding up Criminal Justice Project took on the session on Capacity building and knowledge management; Witness tracking / support was facilitated by Chioma Anuna and Chinenye Chime both Programme Officers from PRAWA.

The sessions on Building Community Trust and Building Effective Security Systems and Coordination between the police and the neighborhood watch teams were held on the day two of the retreat to accommodate the members of the neighbourhood watch who were in attendance only on the day two. Both sessions were handled by Napoleon Enayaba a Programme Assistant from CLEEN Foundation;

Team Effectiveness and Coordination and then Personal Effectiveness and Wellbeing were discussed by Mrs. Habiba Balogun; Prof. Osita Ogbu took participants through the topic Character, Learning and Patrotism.

3 divisional police officers were nominated to give a recap of the previous day at the beginning of the next day for the 3 days.

Also at the end of each session, an intervention in the form of questions and answers was anchored by the commissioner of police himself.

At the end of the event, participants were awarded certificates of participation.

In conclusion, the retreat achieved its purpose as it for one revealed to the NPF the value to be derived from the Case Management System.