Trans-cultural Relevance in Nigeria: Procedural Justice, Police Legitimacy, and Implications for Cooperation with the Police

Most findings have established that judgement about police legitimacy is built on the behaviour of police officers, especially through the use of procedural fairness and effectiveness of police in crime control. With few exceptions, studies from developed western societies, with relatively stable policing standards and generally well-established order maintenance, have found more effects for procedural justice policing; while empirical investigations in developing and less cohesive societies remain both inadequate and inconclusive. A key initial contribution of this paper is assessing whether the link between procedural justice and police legitimacy holds in a corrupt and challenging context of present day Nigeria. Further step is also taken is this study to examine other factors that may be resident in Nigerian socio-political environment which may have significant effect on public perceptions of police legitimacy and cooperation with police. In other words, it is argued in this study that perceptions of police may be associated not only with what police do, but a wider failure of government to provide for its citizens and other socio-personal attributes of the citizens. Implications of this current findings for policy and research are discussed.