Follow through on prison decongestion

A fresh initiative by Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo to audit the inmates across the 256 custodial centres is welcome. According to the Minister of Interior, this is part of measures to decongest the facilities. Tunji-Ojo said an empirical method would be deployed, adding that the audit would result in massive decongestion of the prisons. He should follow through with the project.

It is no gainsaying that Nigerian prisons need reformation. They are overcrowded and inhabitable. The structures are aged and prone to collapse, enabling hardened criminals to escape.

Fresh statistics from the Lagos State Government reinforce this. The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Lawal Pedro, stated that the seven correctional and custodial centres were strained by 104 per cent. They were built to accommodate 4,754. Instead, there are 9,691 inmates in the centres.

Although they are federal prisons, Lagos, like other states, is left to bear the brunt of the toxic system.

The situation is bleak. At the Badagry Custodial Centre, the structure is overwhelmed. With a capacity of 320 inmates, it holds 508.The Ikoyi Custodial Centre is also stretched beyond its capacity. It is meant to house 800 inmates but currently has 3,311, Pedro lamented.

The Kirikiri Female Custodial Centre has 271 inmates but 371 are living there. The Kirikiri Medium Custodial Centre is cramped with 2,949 inmates against its capacity to hold only 1,940. The Kirikiri Maximum Custodial Centre has a capacity of 1,056 inmates but has 2,017 incarcerated there.

The overcrowding is replicated in the other custodial centres across the country.

Nigeria’s justice system is plagued by abnormality. The criminal justice system is ponderous. The police herd minor offenders into prisons or escalate cases that can be easily resolved. Case files disappear and cases are not well tracked to justifiable conclusions.

Most prisons were built in the colonial era, instigating incessant jailbreaks. The recently collapsed Suleja Custodial Centre was built in 1914 to house 250 inmates but has 449 inmates.

Jailbreaks have occurred in Owerri in Imo, Kuje in the FCT, Kabba and Koton-Karfe in Kogi, Abolongo in Oyo, Jos in Plateau, Mandala in Kwara, Ijebu-Ode in Ogun, and Agbor in Delta in the recent past.

According to government data, awaiting-trial inmates supersede convicted inmates in the prisons. There are 256 custodial centres with 80,507 inmates as of April 29, the Nigerian Correctional Centre says. There are 25,033 convicted inmates and 55,474 ATIs, a 31/69 per cent ratio.

The Enough is Enough charity says that apart from the strain on the weak facilities, inmates are prone to disease, exposed to environmental hazards, and are fed at N750 per day, despite the food inflation in the country.

Although the Muhammadu Buhari administration initiated the building of new custodial centres in the six geopolitical zones, this did not fully take off. President Bola Tinubu must swiftly complete the prisons.

To ease the congestion, the judicial process should be faster. Punishment for some offences should be strictly fines instead of jail terms. Other offenders should be made to engage in public service to reduce the congestion.

There is an urgent need to construct new custodial centres and re-evaluate the policing and legal systems to reduce unwarranted arrests.

In Germany, the goal of the prison system is to correct, rather than punish. Most of the prisoners are mandated to engage in full-time work in 12 of the 16 German states. Prisoners in “open prisons” do not spend their time behind bars in Sweden; they live in housing that resembles dormitories with real freedom.

Ultimately, the centre and the federating units should collaborate to excise prisons from the Exclusive Legislative List in the 1999 Constitution. This will allow states to build more correctional centres, a solution to the chaos.