The Nigerian prison system continues to dehumanize inmates rather than reform them.
For 20 years old Gabriel Akpata, no one can bamboozle him with preachment about justice and fairness. As far as he concerned, the society is not only unjust, but also patently diabolical. For years, he was an inmate of Agodi Prison. He was neither a convict nor was he awaiting trial. According to an account he gave to a human rights group, his was that of one crushed in the Berserk run of the law. He was a commercial driver, eking out a living on this faithful evening when policemen arrested him over an alleged traffic offense. He was thereafter hauled into prison, where he lived for six years.
Also Fatai Ishola a 14 year-old and a minor in the face of the law, was remanded in Ikoyi Prison on holden charge. He was arrested at a bus stop in Lagos, over accusation of holding a gun. No particular charge was preferred against him.
These two cases were merely case studies in the roll-call of arbitrary incarceration, which, among other factors, boils down to a disturbing congestion of most Nigerian prisons.
But the police authorities allayed public fear, over Nigeria’s often morbid dispensation of justice. Sometime ago, Israel Ajao, assistant inspector General of police said Justice Dispensation System Committee, which comprises all stakeholders, now meets every fortnight to address such problems, all in an attempt to decongest the prisons.
That has to be done as quickly as possible. This is because of the need to save many of the inmates from the scourge of some killer diseases said to have lately festered in the prisons. These diseases include acquired immune deficiency syndrome, AIDS, malaria fever, tuberculosis, cough, pneumonia, hernia and skin infections. he magazine learnt that the development is a backlash of the prisons. For instance, at the female section of the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is on song. A welfare officer confided in the magazine that, of the 100 female inmates, full blown AIDS already racks 10. The officer said that rather than provide anti-retroviral drugs for these patients, all that the authorities could provide are multivitamins.
Aside from Kirikiri, deterioration has been the lot of prisons nationwide, despite the fact that they draw regular votes under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. From Lagos to Ondo, and Enugu to Sokoto, the story is the same. The inmates suffer untold hardship, ranging from frenetic hunger to poor medical benefit, just as prison facilities are over-stretched, owing to congestion. Nationwide, there are 144 prison yards that are host to 40,650 inmates. Interestingly, however, 65 percent of them are awaiting trial persons, ATP – people who are still presumed not guilty.
Investigations reveal that Ikoyi Prisons, Lagos, which has an average population of 1,875 inmates, is for example, battling with influx of inmates, most of whom are minor offenders. Also, Port Harcourt Prisons, with a population of 1,671 inmates, as at September, was believed to have absorbed more than it could bear. In this scenario, the essence of prison as a reformation centre seems utterly defeated.
President Olusegun Obasanjo is reportedly worried about the situation, as it might soon rubbish his administration’s claim to enhanced human rights record among the comity of civilized countries. The President was said to have fully backed an inter-ministerial summit on the prisons’ problems, which held in Abuja, in September. Bayo Ojo, attorney-general and minister of justice; Frank Nweke Jnr., information minister; and Sunday Ehindero, inspector-general of police along with other stakeholders, attended that summit. They particularly dwelled on ways of resolving the problem of prison congestion. Ehindero suggested that the attorney-general should support police efforts and initiatives to prosecute in the higher courts.
Others at the summit agreed that directors of public prosecution, DPP, should share in the blame, as they won’t be fiddling more with case files than working on them. Above all, the conferees stridently agitated for a separation of the awaiting trial persons, ATPs, from the convicts.
But Princewill Akpakpan, lawyer and head of Prison Reform Project of the CLO then sneered at government’s refrain that it was making moves to decongest the prisons. He also noted that conditions of service of warders were nothing to write home about. “The warders are hungry and ramshackle. They are sometimes being owed two to three months’ salary. So, how do you expect someone who is hungry to bother about the welfare of inmates?” he asked. The CLO, he said, was taking a proactive step of decongesting the prisons by granting legal aid to indigent inmates.
However, beyond the pang of miscarriage of justice, Uju Agomoh, then executive director of Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare Action, saw the problem of congestion also through inadequate accommodation in the prisons. She said over-crowding, habitation in antiquated buildings, among other inadequacies, trigger cases of jailbreaks. “And such cases will remain a recurring decimal as long as the issues were not adequately addressed”, she asserted.
In his own review, however, Ralph Ikeh, then deputy comptroller of prisons, thought that the police and the judiciary were responsible for prison congestion. He said while the police would fail to complete their investigations, the courts also would not cease from adjourning the cases.
