BY PRECIOUS DELILAH
The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has deployed the 100 newly recruited state attorneys to different courts across the country.
The DPP, Justice Jane Frances Abodo, while flagging off the new government lawyers last Thursday, urged them to exhibit integrity, faithfulness and hard work while executing their constitutional mandate.
The DPP informed them that they were going to serve the people from whom they derive prosecutorial au-
thority. She also cautioned them that since they are on probation, their evaluation would be personal.The deployment of the state attorneys takes immediate effect.
It is hoped that with the additional 100 government lawyers, the existing staffing gap will be narrowed, leading to
improved service delivery. The DPP has also transferred 12 current prosecutors. Prosecutors assess evidence, draft
criminal charges and provide legal advice and help investigators such as police with evidence gathering.
The staffing gaps prior to recruitment, the office of the DPP had about 300 prosecutors and yet the approved staffing structure is 853.
Despite the appointment of the 100 additional prosecutors, the DPP says the staffing gap is still big since the Judiciary is always getting new judicial officers, hence the mismatch.
“The Judiciary has been recruiting almost every month; so the staffing gap is still bad. For example, in some stations, we used to have one state attorney against six judicial officers, so in such stations, we have taken about three state attorneys,” DPP Abodo said.
She added:“The ideal situation should be that the prosecutors should be more than the judicial officers but as it is as of now, the judicial officers are more and actually, we are not present in more than 41 districts even with these 100 new ones.”
