By: Ayooluwa Ayobami
The Nigeria Police Force has denied charging any underage to court.
The Police Force disclosed this via a video by the Force Public Relations Officer, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, adding that individuals above the age of seven can be arraigned in court.
He made this revelation while reacting to outrages over the arraignment of minors for participating in the #EndBadGovernance protest.
Adejobi, while speaking in an interview with Channels Television late on Friday, added that the youngest among those arraigned is aged 13.
He said: “Those that are not criminally liable under the law, those are the young ones below the age of seven.
“Once you are more than seven, you can be charged to court. The only thing is that you need to follow certain procedures to do that.
“But none of them is less than seven. I think the youngest should be 13. The fact that you are 13 years old doesn’t mean you cannot be charged to court.
“Even in the Children and Young Persons Act, you can still be charged to court. Because you are 13 years old, you can go to court. So we have charged them to court for this.
“These are those who actually are leveraged on the #EndBadGovernance protests; they hijacked the protests and they are so violent.
“They are people who were flying Russian flags and many foreign flags, which of course is a punishable offence.
“So they are criminally liable. We have not charged any underage in our own context here to court.”
