I must blame the menace of correctional centres congestion on the nature of the criminal justice system in Nigeria . Criminal justice system encompasses all the paraphernalia of the justice system in Nigeria; ranging from police, court, correctional centres and other law enforcement agencies. Investigation takes weeks or months to conclude and when a matter is concluded on investigation and brought to court for trial, if charges are not filed against them in a court of competent jurisdiction, there will be a delay.

Referring to section 34 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 which requires Chief Judges of the Federal High Court, Federal Capital Territory High Court and State High Courts to assign judges and chief magistrates to conduct monthly visitation and inspection of all police stations and other detention facilities in all the states of the federation and the FCT.

Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, made a very ambitious promise on October 2019. He promised that Nigerian prisons, now renamed correctional facilities, will be decongested. Aregbesola made the statement soon after President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law the Nigeria Correctional Services Act on August 14. Aregbesola’s statement is ambitious because every government in the last 20 years had instituted one prison reform or the other, with little or no result. With the cooperation of state governors, Rauf Aregbesola, minister of interior will be able to decongest correctional centres by 50% in line with his ambitious promise in 2019.

The Honourable Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN and Rauf Aregbesola, minister of interior have deployed virtual court sitting technology in Correctional facilities which is aimed at ensuring speedy dispensation of Justice and decongestion of custodial centres in the country. Malami stated this at the launch of pilot project for the deployment and use of Virtual Court sitting facilities at the Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja on Monday 6th December, 2021.

Rauf Aregbesola, the minister of interior, says 30 percent of inmates in custodial centres across the country should be released. The minister said he will meet with state governors to decide on the mass release of the inmates, adding that 90 percent of them are being held for contravening various states’ laws.
Speaking on recently in a NAN forum in Abuja, Aregbesola said over 70 percent of the 75,635 inmates across the country are awaiting trial. The minister added that the decongestion of the 253 custodial centres nationwide was necessary as some of the inmates have no reason to remain in custody. He called on all stakeholders to work towards a “better-structured criminal justice administration”.

“I have written the Nigerian Governors Forum to allow me to come and address them on how they can support the process of decongestion,” he said. “Because the governors must buy into this system for us to do a massive decongestion especially of awaiting trial inmates. “If we get the buy-in of state judicial authorities and the government of the states, we can pull out 30 percent of those who are there.

“If you look at a man that is caught for petty theft and you are trying him for three years, even if you convict him for that crime, how long will he stay? “How long will that fellow stay, probably six months, but without trial, he will be there for three years. “Again, you arrested a boy under the bridge, there is no fixed crime and he is there forever and so on and so forth. So, we need the buying-in and support from state governments. “This is for them to critically know the situation and let them set up committees that will profile all those who are there. And help either to convict, release them or see if they have overstayed their required time.”

‘AWAITING TRIAL INMATES PUTTING PRESSURE ON PRISONS’
The minister said the high number of awaiting trial inmates (ATIs) is putting undue pressure on custodial centres in the country.

Aregbesola said 51,541 inmates in various prisons in the country are awaiting trial.

“No fewer than 70 percent of Nigerian inmates are serving time without being sentenced as they are awaiting trials,” he said.

“Assuming the period of waiting for trial is even small, probably it will not be an issue, we can manage it.

“How can you put people on trial for fifteen, ten years, how? and they are not a small number.

“Some are even there forever, there is no file, there is no prosecution process, they are just there.

“Our own is to keep, we have no power over who are there, we cannot release them. So, as long as there is a warrant to detain them, we keep them,” he added.

Aregbesola, therefore, called for a review of the administration of the criminal justice system of the country to provide a timeline for trials.

From June 2001, for example, former President Olusegun Obasanjo set up six different inter-ministerial, presidential and working group committees on prison reform. The situation got so unwieldy that in 2007, the same government set up a committee to harmonise the reports of the various committees.

Discharge of those who are terminally ill and those who have no confirmed cases of criminality, persons who have become old, those who are low-risk offenders and those who have no sufficient legal basis to remain in custody. The United Nations has called on countries to reduce the number of people in detention, saying that “physical distancing and self-isolation in such conditions are practically impossible.” former UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet says authorities should look for ways to release people in detention who are especially vulnerable to the disease, such as those who are elderly or who have health issues. She says they should also consider releasing low-risk offenders.

“Now, more than ever, governments should release every person detained without sufficient legal basis, including political prisoners and others detained simply for expressing critical or dissenting views,” Bachelet said. It is vital that governments should address the situation of detained people in their crisis planning to protect detainees, staff, visitors and of course wider society,” Bachelet says.

I must blame the menace of correctional centres congestion on the nature of the criminal justice system in Nigeria despite the fact there is limited funding. Criminal justice system encompasses all the paraphernalia of the justice system in Nigeria; ranging from police, court, correctional centres and other law enforcement agencies. Investigation takes weeks or months to conclude and when a matter is concluded on investigation and brought to court for trial, if charges are not filed against them in a court of competent jurisdiction, there will be a delay.

The other factor is the slow pace of justice dispensation in the country which is attributable to long and, sometimes, mischievous adjournment of cases which has led to non-dispensation of most cases thereby abandoning the inmates in prisons, inadequate funding of the judiciary, slow investigation process by the police. Unfortunately, due to the inherent lapses in the system, the correctional centres system which is supposed to be reformatory has eventually turned punitive, thereby defeating the true essence of sending convicts to prisons. The implication of this reversed system of prison administration is that the inmates of our correctional centres come out more criminally minded than they were before conviction.

Also, the constitutional duties of the Chief Judges to visit prisons should be consistently complied with. This power vested in the Chief Judges to visit and release inmates with offences or those that have over-spent their prison terms and are still there would help to drastically decongest the prisons.

The police also should be given the wherewithal to perform their constitutional role in justice dispensation. It is my candid view that when these are done, the justice delivery system would improve and this, in turn, would help to decongest our prisons for a saner society.

Finally, because of the bad image the highly congested prisons in the country has given to Nigerians and is still giving us a pariah-like treatment among the committee of nations irrespective of status and political orientation or inclination, it will receive a garland welcome if state governors should endeavor to collaborate with the Federal Government in decongesting the ‘death sentence-like’ state of our prisons. Nonetheless, outside the financial partnership, another reason it has become imperative for state governors to collaborate with the Federal Government in achieving this goal is because of the Land Use Act of 1978 which entrusted all land in the hand of governors. And to make things harder, section 315 (5)(d) of the 1999 Constitution also upheld Land Use Act. For instance, section 5(1) of Act which gave so much power to the governors reads: ”It shall be lawful for the governor in respect of land whether in an urban area or non urban area to grant statutory rights of occupancy to any person for all purposes. Hence, the above section invested the power to grant the rights of occupancy on the governor and would definitely need the cooperation of the later to see the light of the day.

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Inwalomhe Donald writes via [email protected]