Prison congestion: Deputy Chief Registrar should take supervisory role over judges-----------Giwa Amu

Tell us the Genesis of Stephen and Solomon Foundation?

First, the Catholic Church as a body have their own order in the church and each order has its own primary functions. The Knights of St. Mulumba is a Knighthood within the Catholic Church primarily the body that takes care of the prison mission is the Justice and Peace Development Commission (JDPC) of the Catholic Church. The orders of St. Mulumba decided to blaze the trail by setting up this prison mission.

My nephew, Sir Obafemi Giwa Amu, got instructions from their metro grand-Knight, Sir Patrick Ikemenfuna and other Knights to set up this prison mission. But they had their constraints, although Femi Giwa Amu is a lawyer and a very senior member of the bar, he now asked if I could be of assistance. Initially, I was not interested because I know is time consuming, money gulping. It is a full time enterprise as it were. You can’t say you go to the prison today and would not go there tomorrow because by the time you step into that place, you will be moved to do further things. I told him I will just do one case for him and he gave me a list and it turns out to be seven. They were the one visiting the prisons then: the Knight of St. Mulumba, Lekki sub-council, not the whole as a body. From seven cases to 24 and started releasing, then we now started visiting the prisons ourselves because we couldn’t expect them to continue.

It is tasking for them too because they have their individual enterprise. We are into legal practise. So, thank God that as of today, we have released 1,110 as our last release from various prisons across the country.We are not part of the Knighthood but an order.

What are the causes of their long stay?

There are many reasons for that. One; the first port where the ship of blame must berth is the legal profession. My colleagues take up matter, where their primary interest is pecuniary interest; gain. They are not interested in the freedom or liberty of their client or the success in the matter they took as it were. That is why you see, we have people we call “charge and bail,” they are just interested in getting the defendant out on bail, when they haven’t collected their professional fees either in part or in full; if they see that the client is a very buoyant, a well-to-do person, his continuous incarceration would benefit them.

There they fail to explain to the client that our duty is to get you out on bail not to defend the case to its end. So, the man believes that having paid this much to his lawyer, he is going to be defended all through only for him to get stocked and he gets incarcerated for a period longer than necessary as it’s reasonable.

Secondly, there is the problem of the judiciary itself. We have some judicial officers, particularly Magistrates, who are not regarded as judicial officers, who act capriciously in the daily administration of their own court.For example, the issue of bail, should sometimes be given or granted based on personal recognisance of the defendant, not when you state such a difficult conditions like; you want three surety and they must be house owners in Lagos state, must have deposited their title document with the court, show evidence of tax payment, show their bank statement.These are conditions, sometimes, difficult for the surety to fulfil. That is while this defendant go to professional sureties and at the end of the day, their court would say this man you brought is a professional surety and that makes their case worse; and he now stays in the custody for a long time because the magistrate is biased that if this man is released, he would not come for its trail. That is judicial capriciousness or whimsicalness of the magistrate.

There are some situations where the magistrate does not sit, particularly in Lagos state.Some magistrates do not seat.

How do they now defend the case…?

(Cuts in) Yes, you see unfortunately those cases in such court suffer. But we have some hard working magistrates like Mrs Badejo Okunsanya, Mr Akinkugbe, there is another in Ikorodu, Ebutte Metta but some of them, three or four don’t seat when they ought to seat. When you get there you either find that they travelled abroad or they came in the morning saying they are feeling headache and cannot seat; they never seat. Some of them are busy going shopping or going selling things.

What are the regulatory bodies judicial council doing to make sure these people are brought to book?

That is the duty of the Deputy Chief Registrar (DCR) there was a time in Lagos state or most states where the DCR has supervisory power over the magistrate, although he is a magistrate himself. He pays surprise visit to see what the magistrate is doing.Is like when the Chief judge of Lagos state was Mr Segun even Chief Justice Ilorin; we have these kind of body to supervise. They go around the court to find out which magistrate came today or didn’t come. I know some of the magistrate that was retired on the ground of redundancy. But now, we don’t have such facilities firmly on the ground.

Why?

It’s because with time, politics has eating deep into the judiciary. The appointment in the first place was hardly on merit, it is who knows whose father, or whose father was a retired judge that gets what.

Don’t you think the system suffers by aligning that with politics?

Definitely.

What should be done?

We must go back to the era where there are supervisory agents within the government that supervise the daily activities of these magistrates. There must be a body on the ground to see when magistrate come to work, it might be a surprise visit not necessarily every day thing. You know when a magistrate comes or when he does not come. Those days, there were returns being submitted by the magistrates to the Chief Justice quarterly. You can’t tell me you are a magistrate and in about three or four months you have not delivered judgement.What are you doing there when there are people in prison?

The second point of complaint is the judiciary.

Third, the government itself. Government is not sincere with the decongestion of the prisons. All fines payable upon conviction, goes to the state government but the maintenance of prisons are bore by the federal government. So long as the maintenance of prisons are bore by a body that does not benefit from the fine payable, the state government does not care how many people are in custody because their interest is financial; economic. That is why Badagry prisons is full of persons who are detained there for street trading, wondering, smoking suspects. Once you are raided by KAI, you are taking straight to Badagry prisons meanwhile the presiding court is in Ikeja. The Lagos state government does not ensure the appearance of that defendant in court on the adjourned day from Badagry, because those in Ikoyi cannot even get to Igbosere on time; so how can you get a man from Badagry to stand trial in Ikeja at 9am? So, he wallows and wastes away in the prisons there.Until NGO of St. Knight of Mulumba comes in. So far, we have released about a 100 people from Badagry prisons alone. These were people who were arrested in Ikeja area.

For doing what?

For street trading. Police call it raiding too. Street trading is on one side, raiding is on the order side. Police just raid a particular area; pick up some boys they meet there and when what they expect to happen doesn’t happen, they take them straight to Alausa, arraign them before a mobile court from there to prison.

Don’t you think the police, KAI and other security agencies within the state;and by extension other states carrying out some arbitrary arrest isa factor to consider in the congestion of these prisons?

Yes. But you see the prisons do not arrest to put into custody, but the police can be made to be less antagonistic if the judiciary is upright. For instance, there was a matter that was before Mrs Badejo Okunsanya, one of the forthright magistrates I know here. The person that was arraigned in court, when the woman asked if there was any exhibit the police said no, (she asked the questions) was he arrested at the scene of the crime, the police said no but he is a suspect, and he was being arraigned. She discharged the man immediately.

The court should learn to exercise its judicial discretion judiciously and judicially. You don’t just say because somebody is brought to your court, you don’t ask any question at all. You have the man reminded in prisons.  We have laws and there is nothing wrong with the laws of this country, our laws are okay; we can survive on a law. I must say that Lagos state government has blazed the trail when it comes to statutory provisions in enhancement of the liberty of a citizen. In Lagos state, after 30 days of detention, the defendant is entitled to apply to the magistrate court for his release, even in a murder case or an armed robbery case because the power to detain that person on a holding charge for the magistrate is shall lapse after 30 days except cause is shown. So, these laws are there, nothing is wrong with it. The ability of these magistrates to know that these laws are there to give them backing for any judicial arm they carry out. They need to know and read these books. When you don’t know the laws what would you apply? By the time the police are telling a magistrate that knows the law things that are within the ambit of the law, he would simply look at him. When there is no exhibit in the case of armed robber, why would you ask the person to be reminded in the prisons? So, the police are ever mischievous, not only in Nigeria everywhere in the world.

But judicial act should be put in place to check the police. If the prisons were handed over to the police for maintenance, most policemen would resign from their bits because it is not easy to manage a prison facility.

There was a boy we released two days ago; he said they were 150 people in one room which ought to contain only 40 people.Once the judiciary is aware of its powers, not duties, to act then the situation would get better.

Are the magistrates’ courts in Lagos or Nigeria in general enough to deal with these cases?

We have more than enough. You see, if we have 10 magistrate courts with diligent magistrates; the court sits at 9am, don’t break that law of “I humbly apply for adjournment coming from a counsel to the defendant or a prosecution witness or persecution,” you go to court you see the DPP applying for an adjournment in a case where the defendant has being in detention for 7 years, and you as a judge is happy to grant such an adjournment. What is your duty?

There is a woman that has been in the custody for the past four years in the female wing of the medium prison in Kirikiri. Only for us to find out recently that there was no corpse in a murder case for which she was charged. No corpse was recovered in that case.

There is a case we are on now, are between two Olalekans, the obvious thing in the case is that one was sun for the other while the main culprit has been set free. That man has been in custody up to 8 years. There is no record of its file in the DPP’s office. Yet the police keepsaying that they have sent the case to the DPP, and we are aware that somebody in DPP’s office ones handles that file.

The only thing can really check this arbitrary use of power is for these defendants should learn to sue the DPOP’s office and government, should they be discharged and acquitted. They should sue them for malicious prosecution. By the time government pays millions every year in the name of damages or unlawful protracted detention, and then they will sit up. I’m surprised Bamaiyi went to his village to begin to rear ostrich and going to the farm instead to sue the federal government and Lagos state government for 11 years of his life wasted in Kirikiri prison. Take a decisive legal action against the authority that has kept him in custody for years without trail maliciously.

What happens to people that had been condemned. What is stalling the execution of that judgement?

There are some that are condemned to death; and some that have been convicted. Let say the present political atmosphere, no governor had had the courage to sign a death warrant for these person to be executed.

Secondly, 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 judgement. So, there are some cases there that are on appeal and there are even cases that have gone to the extent of Supreme Court and have come back confirmed that the person is condemned and should die by hanging. But the present political era has not given any Governor the courage to sign the death warrant.

Is that political, moral or what?

Yes, it is political. Again, apart from it being political, the wing of change internationally now is not to look at punishment by death as a way out of the most grievous offence committed. Everybody is shifting away from death penalty to life sentences as the maximum punishment for any of them. I think the government of the day are tinting towards that direction. Inspite that, their decision not to sign the death warrant is leading to the congestion of prisons. It is not these people that lead to the congestion of prisons but the awaiting trial.

What are the implications of keeping these people there?

The implications are: one, they are there at the end of the day, after about 18 or 20 years, you find out the person is innocent of the offence for which he is charged. Morally, it brings him down; to re-integrate him into the society is a problem. His family is lost forever; he has nothing to fall back to; where will he start from. Left or right, the man loses his bearing for life. For the one that eventually comes out having not found guilty; if not Bamaiyi didn’t havethe wherewithal, he would have been finished. Can you compare him to Khadijat Oseni, who we released about three months ago who was in custody for two and half years for allegedly stealing a Nokia phone of N3, 500. When she was released and gave her money to go home, she couldn’t believe she was outside. Psychologically, she was finished.

We realised that policemen when they arrest some of these people either because they didn’t cooperate with them, prepare their charges, before you know it they are reminded. Is there no way the judiciary can called the police authority to order with a view to decongesting the prisons?

In UK, you have judges who sit 24 hours; who are working 24hrs to their responsibilities and those judges, you can approach them with the writ of Habeas corpus. What it means is that: bring out that body, in law person is called body, which has been kept unlawfully. It is an order directed to anybody in authority to bring out that body you have unlawfully kept.

Immediately the police got the writs of habeas corpus, they are bound to comply with it, that means the judge himself can receive just a phone call in UK from a legal practitioner inBritain, he responds to it immediately to sign the order directing that this person should not be kept in the custody until he is properly arraigned the next morning. He looks at the case dispassionately in the morning to know whether the person should not be kept in the custody. He is either released on bail or maybe unconditionally. But that will not happen in this country. How many judges will you meet 1am and would listen to you? How many judges in Nigeria? Do we even know where they live?

Is it pride?

The rules as they apply in Nigeria are radically different. A judge who knows its right should be able to issue a writ of habeas corpus, it’s not only when he is in the court; even when he is at home but the fear is that the judge will say; people would say the judge has been corrupt. People don’t know their rights; they don’t know how to approach issues. We applied for bail sometimes ago; it was delayed before it was assigned to a court.

What are your constraints?

My constraints are financial. Logistic needs. As much as possible, I would under play the issue of finance because this programme was not set up for the purpose of acquiring public sympathy. Anybody who has any donation to make should make it to the Knights of St. Mulumba, the Prison mission, lekki sub-council. We don’t receive cash here because we didn’t initiate this prison mission. I have used my own private fund to pursue this matter and the Knight of St. Mulumba.

Logistics,we like to go through the states of the country.I have written to most of my lawyer friends, the legal aid council, they should give us one room in their office in the legal aid council, National human right commission because we want to put a lawyer there to accommodate cases where people are kept in custody. Not even one replied us. This is to enable us have lawyersthere; go to the prison to find out people that are kept in the prisons without trails. We fund their release from Lagos here, not one person replied.

We have three cars which I bought myself. We need cars for all these movement. We have these logistic constrains.

The greatest constrains we haveare the lip service of the government to the decongestion of prisons. The government is like the faithful ostrich, they have their head in the sand while their bottom is showing.For example why would a state government not contributeto the maintenance of prisons?
They take the fine and they don’t contribute in any way to the maintenance of the prisons. Secondly, the federal Attorney General has appointed some lawyers now to go to the prisons for the sake of decongesting the prisons; so has the state Attorney General. What kind of perfidy or hypocrisy is this? The state attorney general is entitled to, under the constitution to initiate, continue, take over and discontinue criminal proceedings or prosecution in court. If he is so interested in the decongestion of prisons, why not get a list of those who have been in the custody for over four years and enter a nolli prosequi; discontinue their cases instead of sending people to come and defend the people he is prosecuting.
That means he is a judge in his own court; he is the one prosecuting, providing defence; he has powers over the judiciary, at least, to a minimal extent. What kind of perfidy is this?
Is the prison authority cooperating with you people?
Yes! Wonderfully well. One thing about the prisons is that; let me say for the lower ranks first.The very moment a prisoner’s burden is in your possession, you take responsibility, he dares not escape. It is not a comfortable place to be; a lot of prison wardens have been dismissed for escapee prisoners, so the fewerinmates they have the better it is for the prison authority, because we must distinguish between those awaiting trails and those who have been convicted, because the area that is congested in the prison is the awaiting trail section and I must say again that people have a misconception that the prisons in Nigeria are not well equipped. That is a fallacy.
The Nigerian prison service, particularly the Kirikiri Maximiun Prisons, have printing press, welding factory, sewing industry at the Lagos axis but at the Kwale prisons, the inmate take their bath outside. The list of requirements they gave to us to assist with include sanitary pads for women. That means they have not had the privilege of using that for a long time. When we visited the medium female section,we found about ten children that were born in prison, these children needs the normal baby food and all that, so we make our contribution and gave them what we have.
Apart from releasing them, you also give out freebies?
Yes, we do that very well. We give out baby food, drugs. Whether we have the fund to do it or not, we are not been sponsored by anybody but I must say that the Knight of St, Mulumba, Lekki sub-council on the instruction of their metro grand Knight, Patrick Ikemefuna, have contributed in no small measure. They made donation of food stuffs. They provide medicine and others. At the moment, they are building a prison chapel.