Magnus Eze (Enugu), Romanus Ugwu (Abuja), Joe Effiong (Uyo), Wole Balogun (Ado-Ekiti) & Oluseye Ojo, (Ibadan)
When on Monday, August 19, members of Royal House of Faith Ministries, Lekki, visited the Ikoyi Correctional Centre, Lagos, for a Christian fellowship session with inmates of the facility, who had become born-again while serving their sentences, the delegation from the Pentecostal church suffered deep shock upon seeing the reality of the daily life of the inmates.
It took a strong willpower for the women among them to restrain themselves from shedding tears openly. The experience brought home to the delegation and every other human being, the need to give thanks for every second a person breathes the air of freedom. The simple reason being that the air a person breathes in freedom is worth more than gold.
Across the country, facilities of the now Nigeria Correctional Service (until recently known as the Nigeria Prison Service, NPS) are so decrepit, derelict, over-populated and in disrepair, all crying to be discarded and rebuilt to make them fit for human occupation, in order to meet the new focus of the Federal Government as set through the enactment of the new law and name change of NPS.
In this special report, Sunday Sun gives a broad picture of the situation at the prisons across the country and offers insights on how to make them truly correctional.
Enugu Maximum Prison, others
Chukwunonso Nomeh, 39, from Oruku in Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State is a study in courage and hope. While he waited for the hangman’s noose in the Enugu Maximum Prison, Nomeh made history, last year, as he became the first prisoner in West Africa to bag a master’s degree. He was also the best graduating inmate in the country in 2017.
The 2007 graduate of Metallurgical and Material Engineering from the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) was condemned to death by hanging on January 28, 2016, but he recently was let off the hook by the Court of Appeal.
In an interview with Sunday Sun before his release, the ex-convict described the condition of the prison as hell.
“It’s only the grace of God that has kept me because eight of us sleep in a store that can’t contain an Alsatian dog. I have passed through a lot; stigmatized and psychologically traumatised, but it’s all about determination. I believe that I will not die here; the Lord that has kept me this far will surely deliver me.
“We don’t sleep. Since we are eight, we usually do it four by four; meaning that first set will sleep from 9:00p.m to 1:00a.m; while the second set starts 1:05a.m to 6:00a.m. I normally join the first set so that I can read from 1:00a.m; and as a condemned inmate, you don’t have time coming outside,” he said.
A colonial relic, the age of the Enugu Maximum Security Prison naturally depicts the condition of the facility. Built in 1915 by the British with an initial capacity of 638 to serve Enugu and its environs, the facility presently locks about 2,452 inmates. Of this number, 236 are condemned convicts, 216 are serving various prison terms; 38 are on life imprisonment; called lifers while 55 are lunatic inmates.
The rest, amounting to about 80 per cent of the inmates, it was gathered, are inmates awaiting trial; hence, the service had introduced various programmes to meaningfully engage the youthful minds locked up there with skills and vocational, religious, musical, and educational programmes.
The facility’s special study centre, under the aegis of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) is one of the best in the country and had produced the best students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. So far, a reformed inmate is slated to release a nine-track musical album by October this year.
There are two other prisons in the state; the Nsukka and Oji River medium security prisons. The Nsukka prison was built in 1926 by the colonial government to maintain public order within the Nsukka province and its environs; while that of Oji River was established in 1934 as a prison camp, where inmates with signs of leprosy were attended.
Also Sunday Sun learnt that the Nsukka Prison received its first ever facelift in 2017 with the construction of a storey cell block, all in suites. Official source puts the carrying capacity at 187, but it currently houses 299 inmates.
As for the Oji River Prison, it was gathered that the military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida in December, 1992, commissioned a new facility there with modern and humane accommodation for both inmates and staffers. Tunji Olagunju, the then Internal Affairs Minister performed the inauguration.
With a maximum capacity of 80 beds, the Oji River Prison is counted as one of the few modern prisons built in recent years in Nigeria. It is presently locking above its capacity owing to the problem of overcrowding.
Overcrowding and indeed, paucity of facilities are the bane of prisons in Enugu State. Investigation showed how inmates live like animals in pens, to the extent that a space meant for 35 inmates presently houses about 150-180 of them in the Enugu Maximum Prison. Moreover, none of the cells for inmates awaiting trial holds less than 90 persons.
There is also the problem of quality of food given to the inmates. An ex-convict described their soup as “useless, even dog can never lick it.”
The issue of toilet is the worst point in the condition of the Enugu Maximum Prison. A visitor to any of the toilets would turn back in revulsion and hold back the urine or feaces rather use the facility.
The sanitary condition is unbearable, even the horrible odour that oozes out of their septic tank might be enough to cause airborne disease within Enugu metropolis. We gathered that the condemned inmates, for instance, use paint buckets as toilets inside their cells, which are then emptied and the containers washed by the inmates in the morning, in a manner they call “throwing well.”
Experts said that the high number of lunatic inmates there could be a direct correlation of the dehumanising condition of the facility.
A prison source alleged that about 55 sound men and women remanded by various courts were so overwhelmed by the conditions obtainable therein; then psychological problems like depression, self-pity, hallucinations, vain imaginations and day-dreaming set in and the result was lunacy.
The rot in the system also manifested in the skill acquisition centre where inmates were expected to be trained in carpentry, welding, tailoring and other vocations to complete the reformation cycle. The whole place has become moribund.
The forgoing is one major area that the Custodial Service would have much work to do because several inmates granted pardon or who completed their prison terms, always go home alienated from the people and seen as outcasts by the public.
The case is worsened because they left the prison with no reintegration plan, no rehabilitation, no skill acquired, and nothing added to their lives. This has led to the upsurge in crime in the society because some of them would soon commit other offences and are returned to prison where they could be easily embraced by other inmates.
A good case in point is Mr Ikechukwu Ikpechukwu, one of the prisoners recently released by the Presidential Prison Reform Committee that visited the Enugu Prison. He spent 28 years in prison, but was released into the world a confused and hopeless man without any skill or aftercare programme.
Similarly, Nigeria’s oldest prisoner, Pa Celestine Egbunuche, who was on death row for 19 years, recently regained his freedom, but was stranded in Enugu as there was no aftercare programme for him, by either the Imo State government or the correctional system. The centenarian is still homeless two months after he was freed from years of incarceration.
Another major challenge at the Enugu Prison is the unavailability of vehicles to convey inmates to court, so, the warden resorts to collecting money from them before they could be taken to court. It has been a clear case of “no money, no going to court,” a convict told our reporter. The implication is that indigent prisoners rot away in prisons even when courts were ready to discharge them.
The prison also lacked the facility to take care of young offenders as they are painfully clamped there and allowed to mingle with hardened adults.
Inmates of the Enugu Prison further lamented about medical care, particularly complaining about the attitude of Dr Johnson Okoro, in-charge of the sick bay named OBS.
They described him as a square peg in the round hole, alleging that as a psychiatric doctor, he was not fit to take care of the bulk of health issues emanating from the prison.
According to them, the common sicknesses prevalent in the facility include infectious diseases, malaria, typhoid and diabetes, which are definitely outside his specialty.
Regardless, stakeholders have listed what could be done to make the system really correctional in tandem with its new nomenclature.
President, Global Society for Anti-Corruption (GSAC), Frank Ezeona, who applauded the new policy direction of the government, said that it has tremendously reduced the stigma hitherto attached to inmates.
According to him, the introduction of the two main faculties (custodial service and the non-custodial service) is quite innovative.
He explained that the custodial service ranged from custody of the inmates, taking care of their conditions, conveying them to court in motorized formations, rehabilitation, reformation, feeding, reintegration, empowering inmates educationally and through vocational skill training programmes. And the non-custodial service involves community service, probation, parole, restorative justice, among others.
Moving forward, he urged President Muhammadu Buhari to take the extra step in terms of strict monitoring, provision of fund to the institution and posting personnel and/or officers with proven records of integrity in the sector, as well as exposing the correctional officers to more international trainings to especially handle the reintegration of inmates back to society as probation officers, so as to guarantee safer society as envisaged by the newly assented Act.
Ezeona added that GSAC will not relent in keeping watch on the Nigerian Correctional Service officials in a bid to drive home the noble objectives and intentions of the president to strictly combat corruption in the society.
In the same vein, Convener of Centre Against Brutality and for Safety of Journalists in Africa (CABSOJA), Ugo Ezekiel, urged the government to hasten the implementation of the new policy aimed at reforming the defunct Nigerian Prison Service, to make it actually correctional in nature, instead of the breeding ground for crime that it is today.
“The truth is that change in name is not enough. We must provide sufficient infrastructure, decongest our prisons and obey the rights of prisoners in line with international legislations on rights of prisoners. We must match words with action, if the intended reform will succeed,” the rights lawyer stated.
Kuje Medium Prison and Suleja Prison
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, has two penitentiaries, namely, Kuje Medium Prison and Suleja Prison. While Kuje Prison was commissioned on August 14, 1989, Suleja Prison is as old as the emirate because it was used as a lock up facility by the Emir of Zazzau before it was handed over to the colonial government in 1928.
Although Kuje Prison was built to hold 560 inmates, today it has 786 inmates, comprising 155 convicted inmates, 631 awaiting trial inmates, 23 condemned criminals, 15 life imprisonment inmates and 131 inmates held for various offences.
Like Kuje, the Suleja prison built to hold 250, but currently has 390 inmates, comprising 147 convicted inmates, 202 awaiting trial, five males and one female condemned criminals, among others. Dukpa Farm also in the FCT, built for 150 inmates, currently has 65 inmates, which brought the total number of inmates in the FCT prisons as at August 2019 to 1,241 inmates.
Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Correctional Service, Francis Enobore, told Sunday Sun of the joy of the service, saying that the change in the focus of the institution would bring a lot of benefits and sanity into the system.
Enumerating how the new Act would solve the myriad of challenges facing the service, Enorbore said: “The biggest challenge we have in prison is congestion. There are different ways the new Act can help in the issue of decongesting the prison. The first is the non-custodial measures such as probation and community service, which would play major roles in decongesting the prison.
“What it means is that instead of having people with less infraction like assault and battery, traffic offenders, street hawkers and the like, tried and sentenced to imprisonment, which overpopulates the facilities, we will now adopt alternatives to custodial sentencing like community service. The offender can be asked to clean gutters, clear public cemetery and work in the public hospitals or render similar services that would be of interest to the general public and equally be useful to himself and his family because they would be coming from their houses to serve the punishment.
“By extension, the Federal Government will be totally relieved from the cost of feeding them as inmates, providing medical care and other services. More importantly, those on death row, numbering more than 2,100 across the country, and who should be held in special prisons meant for them (because they are usually violent and difficult to control), would then be easier to handle.
“They contribute to increasing prison population because the governors no longer sign death warrants to execute them, due to the unwritten moratorium on death penalty. This category of inmates happen to be one of the most difficult set to control because they will tell you that a man already down needs not fear a fall again.
“However, instead of keeping them where they are not supposed to be, the new Act provides that any condemned inmate that has exhausted all appeal avenues and has spent over 10 years on that status, the Chief Judge has the power to commute the death penalty to life imprisonment. So, with this arrangement, we can now transfer any such inmate to a more commodious environment where we can better monitor them.
“Once they are commuted to life imprisonment, they can be amenable to other forms of correctional measures. Despite the fact that we are talking about prison congestion, there are several prison centres spread across the country. For example, we have about 17 farm centres across the country and none is up to half of their capacity.
“If we now have more convicts, we can now spread them out to such areas. Gusau in Zamfara State, for instance, has the capacity to hold up to 1,800. We spread out the inmates to other locations where we have space.”
Explaining further he said: “The new Act equally provides that once the governor of a yard, that is the officer in charge of a correctional facility, observes that the capacity of his facility is almost getting to the brim, he will, within one week, report to the state Controller of Correctional Service, who will now inform the state’s Attorney General, the Chief Judge, the Mercy Committee, the State Justice Committee and any other relevant stakeholder, alerting them that a particular correctional facility is getting to its capacity.
“Then within three months of that notification, these bodies would expedite whatever action to be taken to decongest that facility or apply any other measure immediately. The new Act also provides that an inmate that has passed through the rudiments of reformation and rehabilitation in the correctional facility and certified to have imbibed considerable penitence, acquired skill, vocational and sound educational credentials, would be issued a certificate by the board, through the recommendation of the Controller General of the Nigeria Correctional Service.
“The certificate would give the ex-offender a soft landing and opportunity to compete favourably with any other person in the society thereby removing the stigma of being an ex-convict. This would qualify the person to vie for any position, get federal employment with the assumption that he has repented of his wrongdoing and can be integrated into the society. All these measures will go a long way in ensuring that our facilities will no longer be congested and it will help us focus our attention on better management of inmates in our country. In a nutshell, the Act has a very friendly outlook to crime management in the country.”
Ekiti Correctional Service
Located in a serene environment along Afao Road, Ado Ekiti, the correctional facility in Ekiti State has capacity to accommodate 500 inmates, but currently has over 400 inmates of which over 300 are awaiting trial.
Deputy Comptroller, Federal Prisons, Mr Olusola Babatunde, who is in charge of the facility, said it has been well managed under him though the Ekiti State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Wale Fapounda, expressed hope that several challenges confronting the correctional centre would be addressed.
He said: “First, I think it is important to appreciate the president for this affirmation of the importance of an appropriate legal framework for the Nigeria Prisons. However, it must be recognised that the Act on its own will not achieve the desired changes. There is a need for additional measures. In my view, the key criminal justice agencies, including non-governmental penal reform organizations need to examine key provisions of the Act and identity areas of collaboration.
“Second intervention must be to adopt a practical approach to the issue of our large population of awaiting trial prisoners. Achieving this will require a holistic prison audit with a view to releasing, with or without conditions, persons who should not be in prisons or can be dealt with by other means. In essence we need to reduce the more than 40,000 awaiting trial inmates to a manageable number.
“The Federal Government should also urgently review the salary and working conditions of prison officers. They will ultimately lead any prison reform programme.”
On the state of the prison in Ekiti State, Fapounda said: “We have just one prison in Ado Ekiti but the prison faces similar challenges faced by other prison facilities across the country. We need to improve the physical condition of prisons and prisoners. Although much has been achieved in the area of transportation of prisoners to courts, we should do more. The State Government recognises the prisons as an important institution within our criminal justice system. We are committed to supporting the prisons within our limited resources.
“The Fayemi administration recognises the importance of the Act in achieving sustainable prison reforms. We have offered the Controller General of Prisons the possibility of hosting a national dialogue on the Act. We look forward to working out the practical details.”
Uyo Prisons
For the Controller of Prisons, Akwa Ibom State Command, Mr Alex Oditah, the troubling reality is the congestion in the prison, which has inadequate facilities.
Oditah confirmed to Sunday Sun that Uyo and Ikot Ekpene prisons are the worst affected, noting that inmates sleep on bare floor because of congestion.
As at the time of filing this report, the Uyo facility which was designed for 613 persons currently has 1,192 inmates; Ikot Ekpene Prison built for 408, had extra 300 to make it 708; Eket Prison built for 123 has 350, whereas the prison in the coastal town of Ikot Abasi which was designed for 230 ended with only 147 inmates.
Oditah disclosed that 70 per cent of the inmates in all the prisons in the state are awaiting trial, some of whom had been detained for many years on very flimsy reasons.
He also lamented that since provisions are usually made based on the capacity of each prison, the extra number of inmates in Uyo, Oron, Eket and Ikot Ekpene prisons, has put a lot of strains on management.
He appealed to the state government to replace the Abak Prison, which the government demolished to make way to build a flyover and a civic centre with a promise to rebuilding it within nine months.
“Where the prison was situated, the state has now built a civic centre on that land. We are supposed to take the state government to court for a breach of contract and they’re even taking part of our property to build a structure, which they collect rent. That civic centre is supposed to be for the prisons because anything you build on my land belongs to me according to law,” Oditah said.
Sunday Sun learned that the Uyo Prison, which caters for 21 local government areas has only five functional vehicles even as the perimeter fence of the prison is about to cave in because of gully erosion ravaging the area. The fence is less than three metres from the ravine created by the massive erosion.
“We observe that Uyo Correctional Centre housing over 1,200 inmates has only five functional vehicles as the only means of transporting inmates to over 52 courts within the prison’s jurisdiction. It is instructive to note that one of the core functions of the service is to ensure that awaiting trial inmates are brought before the court for their trials. This duty cannot be adequately performed without adequate transportation.”
On the congestion in Uyo Prison built in 1902, the CLO said “Over-stretching of facilities has attendant negative effects on the inmates who are crammed into tiny spaces.”
The organization urged the state government to relocate Uyo Prison to a more suitable location as it had promised.
“With the new reforms which emphasise correction and rehabilitation, the accommodation of inmates should also be improved to give the necessary mental, physical and psychological boost to the inmates,” CLO said.
Oyo Prisons
In Oyo State, the spokesperson of the Nigeria Prison Service in Ibadan, Mr Olanrewaju Anjorin, told Sunday Sun that facilities in the three functional prisons have been overstretched.
To achieve the goal of the new mandate of turning the present prisons into really correctional centres, Anjorin said that critical stakeholders, including the Nigeria Police Force, Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) and judiciary would have to work in synergy.
He noted that the Controller-General of Nigerian Prisons Service, Ja’afaru Ahmed, has worked hard to deliver the new prison at Olomi in Ibadan.
“When the fourth prison which has capacity to hold 2,000 inmates begins to work, things will also change positively because the facility has higher capacity,” Anjorin said.
Oyo State is host to three correctional centres – Agodi in Ibadan, the state capital, Abolongo in Oyo town and the third in Ogbomoso. Agodi Prison is the biggest of the three with a capacity of 390. But as at Thursday, August 22, 2019 it had 1,133 inmates. Abolongo, which was built to hold 160 inmates currently inmates while the one at Ogbomosho, which has capacity for 80, but currently has only about 49 inmates.
But the fourth prison in Olomi has three sections, which are normal cell, condemned inmates cell and the female prison. However, only the normal prison for those awaiting trial has been completed.
Meanwhile, Director and Coordinator, Centre for Justice, Mercy and Reconciliation (CJMR), Ibadan, Pastor Hezekiah Olujobi, who has involved in prison ministry since 1998 and is a regular visitor to prisons in Lagos and Ogun states, to look into the cases of inmates that are legally detained and sources legal practitioners that can assist such inmates on Pro Bono basis, fully agrees with the observation made by Anjorin.
When asked whether he thought the service is currently structured to function in its news capacity, he made a profound response:
“Well, changing of name does not matter much. But when you look at history of renaming public organisations in this country we recall the case of National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), which was changed to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and later unbundled, did anything change? Change may not be rapid, but there must be improvement. In terms of whether they have the capacity or structure to meet up with the new mandate, I do not think that it is feasible thing now. Let us take Agodi Prison as a good case study, whereby the designed capacity is a little over 300 inmates, but you have over 1,000. To actually meet the expectations, you need to address the structure. There should be a friendly environment, where correctional steps can be applied and achieved.
“The facilities in the prisons I have been visiting are very poor. In Oyo State alone, we have 33 local government areas. There cannot be fewer than three police stations in each local government, and they can be more than that. The capacity of prisons cannot even accommodate the number of the accused persons. We have congestion in the prisons because the facilities have been overstretched.
“If truly we want to make our prisons correctional institutions, we must ensure that there are programmes that can actually improve the lives of the inmates, which the faith-based organisations have been doing. If you arrest somebody and the person is remanded in prison custody for five to six years, before you release him, and you don’t do follow-up, what do you think will happen? Definitely, the tendency is high that the person may go back to crime, and that is the gap we are filling.”
For the service to function effectively as a correctional institution, Olujobi posited that vital operational modalities must be put in place. For example, he stated that the government should take good care of the prison officials.
“In the same vein, Corporate Nigeria must play a role to make the new mandate successful and beneficial to society. We all have a role to play. The public needs constant education. They need to know where to come in, in terms of rehabilitation and reintegration of the ex-inmates.
“Experience has shown that when inmates are released from the prison, they are desperate to reconnect with their families or relations, or to be independent. At that stage, it is impossible for the government to monitor them or track them down because there is no structure to achieve it. I want the government to put in place a structure to monitor ex-inmates in the society.
“Another aspect that I want the government to look into is the rehabilitation. When inmates are freed from prisons, the government should identify non-governmental organisations that can help in monitoring the ex-inmates in the society to ensure that they live a good life. In the absence of that, they may still go back to crime.”
In the view of a retired Controller of Prisons, Alhaji Iskil Yusuf, and who is now the Executive Director, Child Development and Concerns Foundation, inmates can make money from the correctional centres to support their family members and resettle themselves after leaving the centre.
According to him, the renaming of the Nigeria Prison Service will have enormous benefits if it is properly implemented. One, for the correctional officers, it will change their psyche. It will specially orientate them to know that they are working to correct the wrongs of the inmates. If there is a provision made in the law that they must study the antecedents of these inmates to know what they need to do to put them on a better pedestal before their discharge. This will raise their consciousness to know that they are working there to correct wrongs of these inmates.
But Alhaji Yusuf is disturbed that the facilities available now do not measure up to the new mandate of serving as correctional centres.
“It is like putting the cart before the horse, which is not good enough. They should have ensured that the facilities are there and are adequate to really ensure that true correctional services can be rendered at the centres,” he said.