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ON NIGERIAN PRISONERS ABROAD AND THE STATE OF

NIGERIA’S PRISONS

The editorial of the Guardian newspapers drew to the nation’s attention the injustice and civil irresponsibility with which our leaders treat men, women, and youths who are inmates of the several prisons across he country, a lot of whom are innocent, without any semblance of dignity.

There is a saying that you can measure a society’s level of civility by the way it treats its prisoners. In this regard Nigeria falls so far short it’s a non starter. The comment credited to Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, in Abuja to mark the 50th anniversary of Nigeria's foreign missions, is so uninformed and irresponsible that one wonders if he is in touch with reality. Even if the state of Nigeria’s prisons is not within his purview, one would assume that he would at least be aware of the Nigerian prison situation even if from briefings at the federal executive council meetings, or from reading the papers, or at least from watching the news? I guess not.

However as was mentioned in the editorial it is not just the fact that it was only in the last few years that the government after over 40 years and several riots, jail breaks and sundry unfortunate incidents that the government deemed it fit to build a new prison facility. Renovations, improvements or extensions to existing facilities have to public knowledge not been done and where they have, it was mostly fictitious. Even President Obasanjo who was a victim and guest of the prisons did not lift a finger to effect positive concrete change.

The effects of a porous justice delivery system, and under funding of prison facilities, are a few aspects that have contributed to the current state of affairs, but a key factor to the over population affair is the dreaded and notorious “Holding Charge/Awaiting Trial Phenomenon”. Though not recognized by the judiciary and prosecutors, the holding charge is a practice whereby the police or prosecutors apply to court (usually magistrate courts) seeking an order to have a suspect remanded or detained in prison custody pending when they would conclude their investigation. This could be anywhere within the region of 2 days to twenty years.

Over 75% of inmates in Nigeria’s prison fall into this category of awaiting trial inmates, not inmates or convicts per se, thus not accorded the right (whatever those may be) of full inmates, and not free men, these individuals hang in limbo, draining the meager resources of the prison authorities. Every day one or two inmates regain their freedom from Nigerian prisons, but for every one released at least 5 take their place. If you do the maths the figures speak for themselves. Not to mention all those held in police stations all over the country.  Civil society organizations have tried severally to draw attention to the injustice and gross violations to the universally accepted levels of human rights, to little avail.

Even when this caution is made, reminding stakeholders that the presumption of innocence is supposed to work in favor of the accused or suspect, there is tendency of society to look at any one in police or prison custody as a criminal or crook that is getting their just desserts. Conveniently forgetting that the Nigerian justice delivery system operates with a mostly corrupt, under funded and under trained police force, moribund and impractical laws which are conveniently ignored by the police and prosecutors or selectively applied, and at best a questionable judicial process that is only recently showing signs of a renaissance.

Appraisals have been done, white papers written, submitted and dumped to gather dust; several initiatives have been instituted at state and federal levels, sweeping statements have been made and several bills have been submitted to the nation assembly. So far no concrete actions have been taken, sadly.

What is even more baffling to my mind is why our esteemed leaders believe that economic prosperity and development can be achieved exclusive of development of and investment in the (criminal) justice delivery system? If the burden is too heavy for the federal government, then perhaps the prison system should be decentralized to the state level or even privatized?

Whatever track government deems fit to pursue on the state of Nigeria’s prisons, it must be a holistic approach that takes into cognizance the entire justice delivery system, i.e. capacity building and improved funding of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies, better training, review and amendment of criminal laws and procedures, expansion, rehabilitation and construction of prisons, development of a truly Nigerian penal policy, which factors in the aims and objectives of crime and punishment i.e. rehabilitation, reformation, correction etc.

Otherwise not only will Nigerians in penitentiaries abroad refuse to return home and complete their jail terms, the general perception that there are a set of laws governing the high and mighty and another for the lowly will only be reinforced; confidence in government and the judiciary as sources of equity justice and fairness will continue to be further eroded.

 HURILAWS: Public Policy Group Working Towards Human Rights, Good Governance and Development.