Report has shown that more than 80 percent of prison inmates in the Nigerian prisons are awaiting trial, due to unwholesome criminal justice system in the country.
The report just released by the Centre for Crisis Communication(CCC) to mark its one year of dedicated service to the nation notes that the Nigerian Prisons Service sits at the very heart of Nigeria’s security architecture and should not be toyed with as the agency statutorily responsible for holding convicted offenders.
The Executive Secretary of the Centre, Air Commodore Yusuf Anas (Rtd) who made the report available to the media further said the remaining 20 percent represents convicted prisoners stressing that apart from the convicted offenders, the prisons also provide abode for those who are still awaiting trials for various crimes and offences ranging from pick-pocketing to terrorism.
It noted that the prisons are indeed very sensitive and important security institutions that must be accorded their place of priority and strategic importance in the overall interest of the society.
The Centre expressed dismay over reported cases of security breaches that led to attempted and actual prisons breaks across the country adding that an assessment of a number of Nigerian Prisons revealed a dire situation across the various prison facilities in the country.
It observed that apart from the obsolete and debilitating state of most of the prisons, there is an apparent shortage or inadequacy of the holding facilities resulting to congestion and most times over stretched with mostly Awaiting Trial Inmates (ATI).
It called on the authorities to carry out reforms to make prisons across the country more habitable, noting that the staggering ratio of actual convicts to the ATI is indicative of a systemic failure in our criminal justice system.
Meanwhile, the Centre does not support the current agitation for the breakup of the country but however, as this would mean a setback of years of unity and progress enjoyed by Nigerians.
The Centre deplored the situation in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps across the country and called for unhindered access to humanitarian activities from both government and international donor agencies. It nevertheless commended the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) for its relentless intervention on the plights of IDPs.
It however commended government’s efforts at tackling Boko Haram and other insurgencies in the country.
It does not take rhetoric or rocket science to fault the systemic failure of the nation’s correctional institutions, that is, if they are any corrective. The outlook is that human rights values and compassion are being eroded, with deprivation to boot.I recall commenting on this situation in the past and citing exemplary that can offer insight into penal reform in Nigeria such as bench-marking tariffs for misdemeanours, first-time offences, common assault and serious crimes. Unfortunately,the degree of commitment and discipline required to construct a road map towards overhauling the combined policing, judicial and penal systems seem to be off-track or not yet considered as crucial to both regard for life and compliance with global recommendation for adherence to and promotion of human values. What would AWT individual feel post-release? He has bee arbitrarily determined and would either live with it or seek recourse in ‘qualified’ criminality. Does Nigeria need this at this period of much expected change? The answer is NO! Nevertheless, from an economic standpoint, many are going hungry and so be it, if they have to spend some vacation period in prisons in order to get at least 3 square meals a day. It is farcical to assume that people don’t do the most desperate things under desperate situations. While one may rationalise incarceration as un-befitting of any right thinking mind, not much is being done to dis-enthuse an individual who felt they are hard done by. The solution,largely rests on the police, ministries of justice, finance and interior, the last being mostly responsible for coordinating joint efficiency drive to revamp its internal protocol and speed up the time tabling processes of arraigning convicted offenders or seek a realistic bond process where rather than stacking up people in over-populated, under-resourced prisons, some approaches need to be looked at to make the prison system ‘fit for purpose’. Nigeria has knowledgeable legal individuals and seasoned academic criminologists with the desirable skill set to set up shop and help to map out effective and efficient reformative/rehabilitative culture and the ways to reconstruct the decayed architecture of Nigeria’s prison system through comparative sampling and depth empirical research. Under normal circumstances, ‘crime is designed out’ rather than celebrated.