The Senate on Wednesday postponed consideration of a bill aimed at establishing standards and licensing requirements for private investigators in Nigeria. The proposed legislation, introduced by Senator Osita Ngwu (PDP, Enugu West), faced opposition from a majority of lawmakers during a debate in the Senate.
In his presentation, Senator Ngwu, who serves as the Senate Minority Whip, explained that the bill’s primary objective is to create a legal framework for licensing and regulating private investigators in the country. The bill also seeks to ensure that private investigators adhere to professional and ethical standards through proper oversight.
Ngwu noted that private investigation is a well-established practice in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Canada, where private investigators are often former law enforcement, military, or intelligence personnel. He emphasized the global trend of licensing private investigators to uphold high standards of professionalism and ethics.
Despite these arguments, the Senate decided not to advance the bill at this time, following concerns raised by several lawmakers.
“The objectives of the bill include fraud prevention, detection, assessment and resolution; corporate fraud and risk management services; insurance fraud and claims investigation; aviation accident and loss investigation; marine loss investigation; occupational health and safety incident investigation; and witness location and bail bond defaulters etc.
“The bill defines the scope of the profession; ensures standards; provides penalty for professional negligence; prescribes offenses for operation without license and encourages industry-based training to maintain capacity.
“The bill essentially seeks to professionalise the industry and has no financial implication,” he said.
However, during debate on the bill, while the Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Olalere Oyewumi, and Senator Victor Umeh supported the bill, others like senators Adams Oshiomhole, Iya Abbas, and Mustapha Saliu kicked against it, describing it as recipe for personal fight.
Apparently flowing with the mood of the senators, the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, called on the sponsor of the bill, to withdraw it for further legislative inputs, which he hurriedly did
