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Inhuman conditions
in Nigerian prisons
By Sun News Publishing
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ogoli Sunday died in prison in the year 2000, after having
languished in jail for an untried murder charge. His family
has done battle for the past eight years with the authorities
of the Nigerian Prisons Service for alleged inhuman treatment
meted out to him while being remanded in prison costudy, a
major reason adduced by his family for his death. This charge,
though refuted by the Prison authorities, does not vitiate
the fact that the situation cited here is a mere exemplification
of the deplorable and inhuman condittions that prevail in
the prisons in Lagos and the other Nigerian prisons.
The dominant atmosphere in the Nigerian prisons, as those
in Lagos reveal, fall acutely deficit of standard prison requisites.
National and international bodies have decried the conditions
in the Nigerian prisons which grossly violate the welfare
and human rights of the inmates. The Nigerian prisons are
alleged to be characterized by frightening congestion, poor
welfare catering, poor feeding allowance (in spite of the
N200 recent jerk- up), dismal health care and general ill-treatment
of inmates.
Recent reports reveal two appalling situations in five Lagos
prisons. One is the fact that over eighty percent of the inmates
in those prisons are those remanded in prison custody who
are awaiting trial. For instance, we are told that of the
3,975 inmates in Lagos prisons, only 583 of them are convicted
persons. The rest, a staggering 3,437 persons in custody,
are those awaiting trial for years on end. The second issue
is that of paucity of space, leading to criminal congestion,
with all its attendant harzards, especially health. In Ikoyi
prison which was designed to accommodate only 800 inmates,
there are said to be 1,916 occupants, who are compelled squatters.
One of the obvious problems bedevilling our prisons is the
hideously slow pace of Nigeria’s criminal justice system,
culminating in needless congestions, inexcusable delay in
the dispensation of justice, amounting, invariably, to denial
of justice . The recurrent nature of this debilitating situation
makes it imperative for government to take a prompt look at
it and facilitate the resources—physical and manpower—for
speeding the process of judgment disbursement so as to decongest
our prisons appreciably and make jsutice more rapidly obtainable.
Prison authorities who are confronted with the numerous problems
in the prison—including deaths by contagion and probably
hunger—should have shown their concern more visibly
to alert both the government and the Nigerian citizenry of
the absurd state of the Nigerian prisons.
It is heartening to hear that the Chief Judge of Lagos State
has ruled that no case should lie pending beyond eight months.
But has the Chief Judge paid a visit to any of the prisons
in the State so as to assess, first-hand, the depraved conditions
that exist in them? It remains, also, to be seen how he intends
to implement this order in the face of the acute paucity of
the requisite logistics required by the judiciary and government’s
seeming lukewarm attitude towards addressing the problems.
The judiciary should, in the interim, seek other ways of dispensing
with mild offences rather than speedily hauling the offenders
into over-congested prisons.
It is even alleged that mere delinquent children who should
be taken to welfare institutions are sent to prison,with the
unsavoury consequence of their becoming hardened criminals
when they should go through the process of psychological and
social rehabilitation.
In the long run, if the acute inadequacies in the Nigerian
prisons are not promptly and firmly addressed by government,
the inhumanity that the present situation perpetuates will
soar and prisons will finally become an abode of human annihilation
rather than an institution of reprisals for reformation. No
human rights abuse is worse than the denial of justice and
the avoidable conversion of unconvicted, alleged offenders
into convicts under mortal conditions. This condition gravely
assails the survival of our fledgling democracy, which is
itself already threatened by numerous other untoward abuses.
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