The United States “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015” on Nigeria published in April, 2015 has re-echoed concerns about the conditions in Nigerian prisons. The report summarily said, “Prison and detention center conditions remained harsh and life threatening. Prisoners and detainees, the majority of whom had not been tried, were reportedly subjected to extrajudicial execution, torture, gross overcrowding, food and water shortages, inadequate medical treatment, deliberate and incidental exposure to heat and sun, and infrastructure deficiencies that led to wholly inadequate sanitary conditions that could result in death. Guards and prison officials reportedly extorted inmates or levied fees on them to pay for food, prison maintenance, and release from prison. Female inmates in some cases faced the threat of rape.”
There is no gainsaying the fact that 65 per cent of Nigerians held in prisons are on remand. The Awaiting Trial Persons (ATPs) is put at 30,000 persons, representing over 65 per cent of the estimated prisoners’ population of 46,000. Many of these inmates have been incarcerated over a period longer than the maximum sentences that the law prescribed for those convicted of such offences. Prisoners are held over long periods in contravention of the provisions of Section 35 (4) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The constitution says: “Any person who is arrested or detained in accordance with subsection (1) (c) of this section shall be brought before a court of law within a reasonable time, and if he is not tried within a period of (a) two months from the date of his arrest or detention in the case of a person who is in custody or is not entitled to bail; or (b) three months from the date of his arrest or detention in the case of a person who has been released on bail, he shall (without prejudice to any further proceedings that may be brought against him) be released either unconditionally or upon such conditions as are reasonably necessary to ensure that he appears for trial at a later date. (6) Any person who is unlawfully arrested or detained shall be entitled to compensation and public apology from the appropriate authority or person; and in this subsection, “the appropriate authority or person” means an authority or person specified by law.”
Over the years, government had embarked on projects for prison decongestion. For instance, under a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Andoakaa (SAN), the programme attracted a lot support, and many Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) received government financial support to enable them intervene and speed up the release of ATPs in prisons. Unfortunately, this did not seem to have happened, and if it did, the programme did not significantly change the percentage of prisoners in prisons, until the project terminated upon the demise of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua.
We solicit that the Legal Aid Council and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) rise to the occasion by taking up the cases of persons who languish in prisons as a result of perpetual adjournment of their cases. Government should fund these agencies to enable them carry out their constitutional duties of reducing rights abuses. Also, government should evolve alternative punishments for non-violent offences, like subjecting violators of some civil laws to community service. Furthermore, prison officials should be trained on modern approaches to prison management. Extorting prisoners financially, denying them of food and medicine, exposing them to condemned criminals and other inhuman conditions run short of modern prison management. That is why Nigerians in prisons abroad prefer to die there than return to Nigeria to serve their prison terms.
Furthermore, the Buhari administration should urgently review the entire criminal justice system- the police, judiciary and prison authorities – to ensure that prisons are decongested and that those who must serve prison terms are reformed, not dehumanized.
