Controversies have continued to trail the adoption and use of plea bargaining in the criminal justice administration in Nigeria, particularly in prosecuting high profile corruption cases. This paper interrogated the pros and cons of its application by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to recover looted funds from high profile corrupt public officials. Leaning heavily on sociological school, which emphasizes the relationship between law and the needs and institutions of the society, the article explored various schools of thought in law as regards the conceptualisation of plea bargaining, theoretical underpinnings of the emergence, adoption and the implication of its use on Nigeria's drive towards ensuring equality before the law. The selective use of plea bargaining in the country is adjudged to be counterproductive and inimical to the country's quest for social justice.

This study brings to the fore, insights into three key factors that had been widely noted to play significant roles in driving effective pandemic policing. These are the preparedness of the police as first responders to a public health crisis, the level of public trust in the police as a legitimate power holder, and community engagement as a tool to drive public support and participation in fighting COVID-19. Using the Nigeria police as a case study, with the damning reports of abuse of power and other misconduct, this study examined how the police responded to COVID-19 mandates and community participation. Interviews with 40 police officers who enforced the COVID-19 lockdown, 16 senior police officers, and 18 community leaders within Lagos and Ogun states were conducted, and a thematic analysis of the narratives was carried out. Findings indicated that community engagement was not effectively deployed by the Nigerian police in the course of pandemic policing. This was due to a lack of police preparedness, over-reliance on the use of force for public control, public distrust in the police, and a lack of prior practice of community engagement by the police. Public distrust in the police was found to be central to peoples’ disobedience to COVID-19 rules which worsened police-community relations, culminating in protests against the police and its formations. These findings have important policy and practical implications if police legitimacy and post-COVID police-community relations are to improve.

Indeed, appreciable number of researches has been conducted to facilitate relevant insights about the aetiology of child sexual offending in Nigeria; however, the understanding of the origins and causes of sexually abusive behaviour perpetrated against minors in the country remains rudimentary. This present study examined the psychosocial and psychosexual histories of offenders and presented the accounts, excuses and apologies of child sexual offenders. Drawing on the Integrated Theory of Sexual Offending (ITSO), explanations of adults' sexual attraction towards the underage, mode of operation and events leading to sexual abuse of the children were investigated. Qualitative analysis of official demographic and offence history data, and in-depth interviews of 29 purposively selected offenders in Ikoyi, Kirikiri Medium and Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, Lagos revealed that a combination of developmental experiences, biological processes, cultural norms, emotional arrest, psychological vulnerability, and sociological inadequacies are responsible for onset of abusive behaviour towards children. The excuses of the offenders for their abusive behaviour hinged on unfulfilled sexual needs, drug influence, ignorance of the law, impulse disorder, alcohol, senility, the urge to feel in control and powerful or the identification with young children as a result of arrested emotional development. The study concludes that the factors that accounts for child sexual abuse in Nigeria are multidimensional, hence, singular factorial theories may fail to effectively expose the aetiology of sexual abuse of the underage in the country. There is need for concerted efforts to be directed towards addressing the problem of objectification and sexual violence against children in the country.

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