EMEKA IBEMERE
In the eye of the international community, Nigerian government is one of the countries in the world with poor human
right abuses. This is because it has
failed to meet up with its national and international obligations in the area
of criminal justice system.
Despite several presidential
commissions and committees that have recommended urgent reform of the Nigerian
prisons in the in the past years, a number of Nigerian inmates are still
languishing in jail without trial across the country.
Even with the lion share budgets
earmarked for the Internal Affairs and Justice Ministries for the reform of the
Nigerian prison service, the result is yet to be achieved due to the lopsided
administration and sloppy justice structure in the prisons across the nation.
Since coming into power as Minister
for Justice, Mohammed Adoke hasn’t deemed it necessary to visit any known
prison for the on-the-spot assessment of the Nigerian prisons across the
country and even feel the pulse of inmates who are still awaiting trial for
close to 20 years.
Today, the Kirikiri Maximum Prison,
Apapa, Lagos is filled with inmates whose human rights are systematically
abused and violated. Roughly 80 percent of the inmates are on awaiting trial, most
of whom have been waiting for their trials for 15 years. For instance, at the
Maximum Security Prison, Kirikiri, Apapa, Lagos, over 200 inmates are on hold-on
charges while at the Medium Security Prison, Kirikiri, 58 inmates are the
awaiting Director of Public Prosecution’s advice list since 2008.
Investigation showed that the
longest inmate on awaiting trail is one Sule Sanni with serial number C163. He
was charged with murder and is, therefore, facing his charges at the Magistrate
Court 1, Yaba. He was arraigned on January 8, 1999. Sanni’s charge number is
A/1/99. He has been in prison for 11 years without trail after the first
adjourned case.
Sharing the same fate with Sanni are
three other inmates: Lookman Ajala, (10 years); Victor Akpan, (10 years); Wasiu
Ajayi, (9 years); Abayomi Makinde, (8 years); Kingsley Ogbakpa, (8 years) and
James Okoro (7years), respectively.
Shockingly, Daily Newswatch investigation further revealed that some had been
buried and forgotten by family members on the grounds that they are dead, but
are still in detention cells.
There are others who have been on awaiting
trial for between four and six years. The least are the inmates on three years
awaiting trial. Most of the offences allegedly committed by the inmates range
from robbery, murder, unlawful possession of firearms, human skull, possession
of double-barrel guns and other sundry crimes.
These cases are at the Magistrate
courts sitting at Tinubu, Igbosere, Ogba, Ebutte-Metta, Tapa, Isolo, Ejigbo,
Ikeja, and Airport, all in Lagos areas.
At the Medium Security Prison, about 35 inmates
are languishing without knowing the day of their trails. Out of this number, 33
have already spent three years waiting for trial.
Their offences range from robbery
and illegal possession of firearms. Investigations by our correspondent
revealed that in Kirikiri Maximum Prison, 600 are on Awaiting Trial Men (ATM); 74
inmates are on life sentences; 110 have been convicted and 75 condemned to
death.
It was gathered that those on death
row have been waiting the hangman’s noose since 10 years, while the convicted
criminals and 74 inmates on life sentences are rotting away without any proper
attention.
The 600 on the waiting list don’t
even know when their cases will be heard for the first time.
The whole scenario, according to a
prison source, is a fraud. Before his suspension in the wake of the April polls
in 2011, the then Minister for Interior, Navy Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho, had,
shortly after being sworn-in, toured the Medium Security Prison in Kuje and
Abuja, where he found many unfinished projects and demanded action. He also
assured that his Ministry would work with in conjunction with the Ministry of
Justice to speed up the trials of over 30,000 prison inmates that were on
awaiting trial. This, according to him, was to allow for the release of inmates
who had not been tried after three or more years in detention.
But
that project seems to have gone with the sacking of Iheanacho, thereby dashing
the fate of the inmates.
“Adoke and Abba Boro have not considered it necessary to
take up that challenge. No wonder, the Boko Haram sect has taken up the
challenge by releasing inmates in some Nigerian prisons”, says Onyeanuforo
Chinedu, a social worker and deacon.
Also,
in an exclusive interview with Giwa-Amu Igbono, a lawyer and a senior partner,
Stephen and Solomon Foundation, a prison ministry of the Knights of St.
Mulumba, Lekki Sub-Council, the reason why Kirikiri Maximum Prison and other
prisons in Nigeria have continued to play host to so many inmates on awaiting
trails are because of the poor legal assistance given to inmates by lawyers.
Amu, whose chambers is devoted to ensuring
that oppressed people who have been denied justice and their fundamental Human
Rights are set free, further blamed his colleagues in the legal profession for
taking up matters most of the times for pecuniary motives without having the
freedom or liberty of their clients at heart.
He also disclosed that his chambers had so far
succeeded in securing the release of 3000 inmates from various prisons across
the country.
“There
are many reasons why so many inmates are awaiting trails. The blame must berth
in the legal profession. My colleagues take up matters, where their primary
interests are merely for pecuniary reasons. They are not interested in the
freedom or liberty of their clients. That is why we have people we call “charge
and bail. They are just interested in getting the defendants out on bail.
“The
fact that the government is not sincere with the decongestion of the prisons is
disappointing. Also, it is disappointing that all the fines payable upon
conviction go to the state governments, while the maintenance of prisons is
borne by the federal government.”
It
was gathered that due to paucity of funds, most of the cases last so long, as
the maintenance of prisons are borne by a body that does not benefit from the
fine payable. The state governments do not care how many people are in detention
because their interests are financial and economic.
It
was also revealed that some Magistrate courts are part of the problems of those
on awaiting trails.
Giwa-Amu
revealed that the habit of judges absenting themselves from courts on flimsy
excuses is another problem.
It
was also gathered that some of the magistrates either engage in unnecessary
oversea trips or come to courts complaining of headaches. Some even went on
shopping sprees or selling assorted items, instead of looking at some of the cases
they have at hand.
According
to a reliable judicial source, there is the problem of the judiciary itself.
Some of these judicial officers, particularly Magistrates, act capriciously in
the daily administration of their own courts, thereby frustrating the trial of
these detainees.
Giwa-Amu
disclosed that some of the magistrates give too stringent bail conditions,
making it impossible for the victims to be granted bail due to the inability to
meet some of the conditions.
He
said the only way to nip in the bud the case of prison congestion is for the
Deputy Chief Registrar (DCR) to enunciate some proactive measures that will
bring about evoking its supervisory power over the magistrates.
Investigations also showed that most
of the people in Kirikiri prisons are too poor to pay lawyers and only one out
of seven of them has private legal representation.
Talking about those condemned to
death but are yet to be executed, Giwa-Amu said, “Let’s talk about the present
political atmosphere; no governor has had the courage to sign a death warrant
for these people to be executed.
“Also, some of these cases are on
appeal. You cannot go and hang a man whose case is still in the Court of
Appeal. Even if the appeal is frivolous, vexatious and empty of substance, you
will allow the highest court of the land to give its final judgment. So, there
are some cases that are on appeal and there are even cases that have gone to
the Supreme Court, where it has been confirmed that the person should die by
hanging. But the present political era has not given any governor the courage
to sign the death warrant.”
According to him, apart from it
being political, the wind of change internationally now doesn’t look at
punishment by death as a way out of the most grievous offences committed.
“Everybody is shifting away from
death penalty to life sentences as the maximum punishment for any of offence. I
think the government of the day is tilting towards that direction. In spite of
that, their decision not to sign the death warrant is leading to the congestion
of prisons. It is not these people that cause the congestion of prisons, but
those on awaiting trials because they are more in number,” he quipped.
Amnesty International, while working
on the prison system, exposed the gory state of Nigeria's prison system, saying
that Nigeria's prisons are filled with people whose human rights are being
systematically violated.
According to Amnesty International
in February 2008, the criminal justice system is utterly failing the Nigerian
people, adding that it is a mere "conveyor belt of injustice from
beginning to end."
It was discovered that about 75
percent of prison inmates have never been convicted of any crime, with some
awaiting trial for more than 10 to 11 years. One in seven awaiting trial has no
access to private legal representation while there are only 91 legal aid
lawyers working in the country.
Investigation revealed that Kirikiri
prison is overcrowded and there are quite disheartening tales of the prison
conditions, a situation that damage both the mental and physical health of the
inmates.
According to the organization’s
report, torture by police is also routine and widespread, with
"confessions" extracted by torture often used as evidence in trials.
"The problems in Nigeria's
criminal justice system, especially its prisons, are so blatant and egregious
that the Nigerian government has had no choice but to recognize them. It has
pledged many times that it will reform the system,” the organization claimed.
Amnesty International said that many
inmates awaiting trial were effectively presumed guilty, despite the fact that
there was little evidence of their involvement in the crimes they were accused
of.
The organization, while x-raying the
conditions of the inmates, also revealed how people not suspected of committing
any crime were imprisoned along with convicted criminals. The report said that some
were arrested in place of family members that the police could not locate;
others suffered from mental illness and were brought to prison by families
unable or unwilling to take care of them.
The report further showed the many
could not afford the services of lawyers. Some cases take so long to get to
court by the police because they always complain about logistics and
unavailability of means of transportation to take the inmates to court.
A prison staff, who spoke under
anonymity, told Daily Newswatch that
the conditions in Nigeria prisons were far below the UN standards for the treatment of
prisoners.
Checks at the Kirikiri showed
that inmates sleep two to a bed or on the floor in their dingy cells. Toilets
are blocked and overflowing or simply non-existent; and there is no running
water, a situation that is responsible for why many of the inmates have
contracted different diseases.
Efforts by Daily Newswatch to speak with the Lagos Prison Service Public
Relations Officer were unsuccessful as calls made to his GSM line were not
picked.
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