Lagos Assembly Passes Bill for DNA, Forensic Centre

Lagos State House of Assembly has passed a bill establishing the Deoxyribo-Nucleic Acid (DNA) and Forensic Centre into law.

The centre will support criminal investigations, law enforcement and preservation of evidence for the judicial system.

The bill was passed yesterday after it scaled the third reading at plenary, with all lawmakers in attendance giving their approval.

The report on the bill had been adopted at an earlier sitting presided over by Speaker Mudashiru Obasa.

Part of the objectives of the centre includes to provide for the use and regulation of DNA based technology in Lagos State, in order to carry out profiling or analysis. The centre is to also ‘carry out other forensic disciplines, including toxicology, drug chemistry, finger print examination, firearms examination, tool mark examination, ballistics, trace evidence analysis, question document examination and digital forensics to obtain evidence relevant to the investigation of criminal offences.

It will also provide for the use of DNA profiles in the investigation of crime and the use of such profiles in proving the innocence or guilt of persons; provide for the conditions under which the samples for DNA profiles may be retained or destroyed, among other provisions.

It will also establish a DNA database and a DNA Index System, as well as establish a DNA bank for storage of reference DNA samples.’

The bill gives power to the centre to take specified bodily samples from certain categories of persons for the purposes of DNA analysis; collect, examine, document and preserve evidence, which can later be used in the identification of offenders, among others.