Behind prison walls, the life of inmates is a stark contrast to the freedom people take for granted. For inmates, each day begins under the cloak of confinement, with a monotonous routine that is only broken by the rare arrival of visitors.
The prison gates, steel doors, and the constant shuffling of guards’ footsteps serve as a constant reminder of life under surveillance and detention. For those awaiting trial, life in confinement is even harder as the uncertainty of not knowing one’s fate makes the experience agonising.
Mansur Ismail, a 35-year-old man spent five years in a correctional centre before he was discharged and acquitted. He shared his harrowing experience as a victim of the awaiting trial system.
“I was arrested in a group of people who were smoking cigarettes,” he said, adding that everyone else ran away, but he was held. “They claimed the cigarettes were mine, and that’s how they detained me,” he told Weekend Trust.
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Even though he had a lawyer, Ismail said the police held him for three months and didn’t take him to court. When the trial date came, the 35-year-old said he was instructed to inform his lawyer to meet him in court. But like many cases before Nigeria’s court system, his case was adjourned for 37 days, then 31 days, and then adjourned for another 35 days. Eventually, Ismail, said he was sent to Kuje Correctional Centre, in the Federal Capital Territory where he remained until October 5.
Having spent nearly two months in Kuje prison and being subjected to what he described as unimaginable conditions, Mansur Ismail said: “Life was filled with agony and sorrow.” He described the menial tasks he was forced to perform, which included using buckets to pack faeces from septic tanks.
“The food was never enough. It always felt like it disappeared the moment I tasted it. Even when I drank water, I never felt satisfied,” he recalled.
Since his release, life has not been the same as some of the people he used to work with now fear him, assuming he was connected to criminals. “This has affected my life deeply. My former customers and associates no longer come close to me,” he lamented.
For Jamilu Aliyu, freedom now tastes sweeter after enduring the hardship of prison. “I went to Lagos, and on my way back, someone gave me a package. I didn’t know what was inside. When we got to Gwagwalada, in the FCT, NDLEA officers stopped the car and checked the package. They found 40 kilos of cigarettes,” he said.
Aliyu was arrested in 2019 but was not sentenced until 2020 when he received a sentence of two years and three months. “I suffered because I couldn’t afford a lawyer. My family is poor, which delayed my case,” he said. He narrated how he was fed twice a day with garri and kulikuli (groundnut cake). “We had to source for sugar ourselves,” he recalled.
Speaking of the long-lasting effects of prison on his livelihood, he said: “Up till now, I don’t have a stable job. I work as a labourer, scavenging dumpsites and selling scrap to feed my family.”
A visit to the Suleja Correctional Centre in Niger State revealed that many suspects remain locked up, still awaiting legal representation. This is true for individuals like Naziru Abdullah, Mustapha Usman, and Anas Shehu, who were arrested and imprisoned without ever being convicted. They are part of Nigeria’s huge inmate population of 79,237 as at December 23 2024, according to data on the website of the Nigerian Correctional Service. The data shows that Nigeria has a population of 52,519 inmates awaiting trial, and 26,718 convicted inmates. The number of those awaiting trial represent 66 per cent of the total prison inmates with male inmates occupying 98 per cent of the number.
The situation of Abdullah, Usman and Shehu who are awaiting trial at the Suleja Correctional Centre were compounded because they were arrested and detained without the knowledge of family members.
Anas Shehu was accused of stealing goods worth N500,000 while scavenging for scrap metal while Naziru Abdullah was accused of conspiring to kidnap his boss. Mustapha Usman was arrested for stealing a television during a police raid. All three men remain in jail, awaiting trial.
Our correspondent spoke to legal practitioner, Ibrahim Wali to shed light on the awaiting trial system in Nigeria and he clarified that while awaiting trial, suspects are still victims.
“Once convicted, they are no longer victims, but the court considers the time spent awaiting trial when sentencing. That period is counted as part of their sentence,” he said.
He attested to the rising number of inmates on awaiting trial in the country’s correctional centres. “At Kuje Correctional Centre, there are more awaiting trial inmates than convicted ones. They occupy more than 50 per cent of the facility, and this contributes significantly to prison congestion,” he added.
The overcrowding of prisons in Nigeria has been a major issue, with experts attributing it to the large number of inmates awaiting trial. According to 2023 records of the World Prison Brief; an institution which collects and collate data on prisons globally, Nigeria ranked 7th in Africa for the most prison population, trailing behind South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Algeria, Morocco and Rwanda.
Samuel Kargbo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) describes Nigeria’s prison population as a “a dam of anger.” “The slightest opportunity, and anyone in their way is dead. Being choked up turns you into an animal, and when the opportunity comes, they seize it. Most of the time, prison breaks don’t happen from within; they are orchestrated from outside. It also relates to lapses in correctional management,” he said.
Weekend Trust reports that between 2016 and 2022, Nigeria has witnessed at least a dozen prison breaks across the country’s correctional facilities in Niger, Enugu, Edo, Kogi, Ondo, Plateau, Imo, Oyo, Delta, Kwara and the FCT. The jailbreak at FCT’s Kuje medium-security prison in 2022 led to the escape of over 600 inmates in which 64 are terrorists and many still at large.
Speaking on the congestion in the prisons, Abdullah Omoloye, a whistleblower, revealed that many suspects could have been freed if not for financial constraints that prevented them from paying bail. “When a suspect is being tried by the courts and kept in custody, they may be denied bail due to financial challenges,” he explained. “Although the law says all offenses are bailable, some offenses, especially those carrying capital punishment, are not.”
The Nigerian government’s budget for prisoners highlights the ongoing challenges within the system. In September, the Federal Government announced a 50 percent increase on daily feeding of inmates from N750 to N1,150 following a public outcry over a viral video that showed the poor feeding conditions in the correctional facility. However, in November, the House of Representatives urged the federal government to further review the daily feeding allowance of each of the inmates from the current N1,125 to N4,000 in view of the current market realities.
The House also urged the Federal Ministry of Finance and Budget Office to increase the capital allocations to the Nigerian Correctional Service to N30 billion in the 2025 budget estimate to enable it complete all critical ongoing and abandoned projects. However, Weekend Trust found that only the sum of N13.5bn was allocated for capital expenditure in the 2025 budget of the Nigerian Correctional Service.
As many Nigerians languish in jail awaiting trial, experts note that the rise in their number can be attributed to delays in prosecution and inefficiencies within the court system. Human Right advocates continue to advocate for the use of technology and innovative systems to help stem the injustice of indefinite detention. They argue for a modernised judicial system that includes alternatives like community service, house arrest, probation, and GPS ankle bracelets to help decongest prisons.
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