SHOWCASE MAGAZINE | 2018
ARREST
Generally, in making an arrest, the police officer or
other person making the arrest. Same shall actually
touch or confine the body of the person arrested,
unless there be no submission to the custody by
word or action.
A person arrested shall not be handcuffed, other-
wise bound or be subjected to unnecessary restraint
except by order of the court, a magistrate or justice
of peace or unless there is reasonable apprehension
of violence or of an attempt to escape or unless
restraint is considered necessary for the safety of the
person arrested.
Except when the person arrested is in the actual
course of the commission of a crime or is pursued
immediately after the commission of a crime or es-
cape from lawful custody, the police officer or other
person making the arrest shall inform the person
arrested of the cause of the arrest.
Arrest by police officer without warrant was pro-
vided for in the CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ACT L.N 112
(1964) Section 10 and it read thus:
10 (1) Any police officer may without an order from
a magistrate and without a warrant, arrest-
(a) any person whom he suspects upon reasonable
grounds of having committed an indictable offense
against a federal law or against the law of any state
or. Against the law of any other stated, unless the
written law creating the offense provides that the
offender cannot be arrested without a warrant;
(b) any person who commits any offense in his pres-
ence.
(c). Any person who obstructs a police officer while
in the execution of his duty or who has escaped or
attempts to escape from lawful custody;
(d). Any person in whose possession anything is
found which may reasonable be suspected to be sto-
len property or who may reasonably be suspected of
having committed an offense with reference to such
thing;
(e). Any person whom he suspect upon reasonable
grounds of being a deserter from any of the armed
forces in Nigeria;
(f). Any person whom he suspects upon reasonable
grounds of having been concerned in any act com-
mitted at any place out of Nigeria which, if commit-
ted in Nigeria, would have been punishable as an of-
fense, for which he is, under any enactment in force
in Nigeria, liable to be apprehended and detained in
Nigeria;
(g). Any person having in his possession without
lawful excuse, the burden of. Proving which excuse
shall lie on such person, any implement of house
breaking;
(h). Any person for whom he has reasonable cause
to believe a warrant of arrest has been issued by a
court of competent jurisdiction in the state;
(I). Any person who has no ostensible means of sub-
sistence and who cannot give a satisfactory account
of himself, and
(j). Any person found in the state taking precaution
to conceal is presence in circumstances which afford
reasons to believe that he is taking such precaution
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