By Bashir Adefaka
There are many inmates in the prisons who have stayed for long there not because they committed so much of heinous crime but because they are awaiting trials. And because they cannot afford bail conditions or have no lawyer to represent them, they are languishing in jail for over a long period of time. Some inmates are even there not because they committed any offence but due to the evil that some bad eggs among the security forces do.
The Nigerian Prisons have a sorry tale of inmates that needs urgent attention from government. It has been discovered that not all that are currently inmates of the prisons actually should remain there and the lack of capacity to do justice in this regard is stressing the nation’s ability to deliver against prisons congestion.
In tackling the problem of prisons congestion therefore, certain factors must be given holistic considerations. One, how many prisons yards does Nigerian Prisons Service (SPS) have? What is the distributional chart of these prisons across the locations? If there are prisons yards in Akure, Ondo State, Makurdi, Benue State, Gusau, Zamfara State, Ibadan, Oyo State and scattered all over the country and yet the complaint about prisons congestion strives loudly in the media, does it mean the population of Nigerian prisoners in Nigerian Prisons is more than the population figure that is being flown around as national population? If not, then what is the problem?
Our checks revealed that not all prisons yards in Nigeria congested. So, why can’t the authorities move inmates that are making Ikoyi, Kirikiri prisons congested out of Lagos and relocate them to other prisons of choice in other parts of the country? This is not without remembering the ethnic and political sentiments that some Nigerians whipped into this type of solution in the past when some Igbo people in South Eastern Nigeria in collaboration with a section of the Nigerian Media kicked against the relocation of some Boko Haram inmates from Abuja to a prisons yard in Anambra shortly after coming to office of the current administration. But of a surety, there is no alternative to doing just this.
Two, profiling should be done of the inmates with a view to knowing identifying who among them really should remain and who among them do not really need to be there and must be released without much ado.
This is vital because it is sometimes sad that an inmate is in jail because of the offence of goat though has option of fine but could not be able to pay. That is happening in Nigerian Security-Judiary-Prisons Disciplinary Chain (SJPDC) even as people who confiscate estates worth billions of Naira or steal billions of the Nigerian commonwealth, or corruptly arrogate powers of state to themselves are let loose to walk free in the streets.
In such situation, for a thief of goat, there should be mechanism for rehabilitating him right inside the prison, if he eventually gets there for lacking the capacity to pay the fine as an option, and then the government should free him and get a department of the mechanism to monitor his lifestyle for a period of time until he gets favourably reintegrated into the society. Or if he can pay the fine and so does not have to step into the prisons, the mechanism should still rehabilitate him and do the same monitor of his lifestyle. That is how to do it.
More unfortunate about this issue of prisons sorry tale of inmates of Nigerian prisons is that, many of them in there are even innocent but just happen to fall victim of some unscrupulous elements in the Nigerian Police and other prosecutorial security agencies. How, for instance does one explain an Okada man who was arrested by policemen on patrol in a part of Lagos at 12 midday and was taken round and held till night only for them to get to the station and put up a crime chart against him as arrested armed robber?
How does one explain a man who runs to a Police Station in a part of Ogun State to report that he was robbed of his commercial motorcycle (Okada) only for the Police to detail him as lead suspect? Likewise a Samarian Nigerian who helped someone to hospital from scene of an accident but because the person has to die upon getting to hospital, the goodhearted Nigerian’s destination of woe becomes prisons yard. How does one explain that? At least, a journalist does not necessarily have to be present at scene of event to be able to report it. By training, he has capacity for getting his facts and report same without problem. Is there no such training for the Police officers and men to be able to decipher the innocence of such a person?
These are the reasons Nigerian prisons get congested and they are also the reason the rate of willingness among Nigerians to help one another in time of accidents or even in time of needs has drastically reduced. That is how Nigeria get to this worrisome state. One must however appreciate that since the last three years of President Muhammadu Buhari Administration, things look like changing from the old order. One must still, at any rate, not lose sight of the fact that some little, little elements still remain in the system who subject innocent Nigerians to this kind of unNigerian behaviour in the Nigerian Security-Judiciary-Prisons Disciplinary Chain (SJPDC) and it is for this reason that The DEFENDER decided to help the government and security point out this area of intra-institutional problem that is making Nigerians feel insecure for them to address same.
There are many inmates in the prisons who have stayed for long there not because they committed so much of heinous crime but because they are awaiting trials. And because they cannot afford bail conditions or have no lawyer to represent them, they are languishing in jail for over a long period of time. Some inmates are even there not because they committed any offence but due to the evil that some bad eggs among the security forces do.
This is the particular aspect of Nigerian prisons system that government must look into because, injustice against humanity particularly from the hands of people or law enforcers who defile all checks of ethics to clamp people into cells or jails without using the “misleading tactics” to achieve it through the judiciary are part of the problem that Nigerian nation has currently where in the presence of abundance of food and plenty of money the people cry of hunger and have nothing to carryout legal exchanges for individual economic growth.
Godliness matters no matter how hypocritical secularism some unpatriotic elements in the country claim the nation to be. There is no Nigerian who is not either a Muslim or Christian. When does one’s conscience descends so low to be less of fear of God that he would clamp people into security and judicial problem that would make him rot in jail for committing no offence? But this is going on at the underground sector of the Nigerian Security-Judiciary-Prisons Disciplinary Chain (SJPDC) and it is part of what the administration as zero-tolerant for corruption and impunity as what the nation currently have and ongoing should be helped to know.
The policy of “If you see something say something” makes this easier but it is what the opposition and the generality of the Nigerian Media have failed to point out to the authorities. When you criticise without basis or facts, you end up plunging the country into chaotic situation. That has been reason opposition or media checks have made no positive impact. The DEFENDER, for the fact of its editorial policy of “defending the truth and national integrity” has always been prepared to partner with government and anybody whose main business is to make Nigeria free of corruption, impunity, hate and fake news-induced violence.
Also there are condemned criminals, some of whom have contested their death sentences to the Supreme Court and have been confirmed as “must die”. They are there in the prisons feeding fat on State resources and pushing the society into the risk of being freed one day and reintegrated into the society without rehabilitation thereby continuing to cause crisis for the human community.
Government must be able to visit the prison yards, not occasionally but, regularly with a view to profiling the inmates and get these issues sorted out: Release those that need to be released because they were just merely being victims of bad policing in some policemen (and policemen responsible for their plights must be traced, apprehended, tried and sentenced); help pay for those whose main reason for being there is inability to pay as they have option of fine not to be in jail.
Government must be able to find out or ask themselves “Why do we refuse to sign the death warrant of people who have been proved to be deserving of death by constitutional court of justice”.
The problem people have in Nigeria today where, in the presence of abundance, they go hungry and in the presence of many religious houses and groups they are bereaved of good moral and lack in spiritual standard capable of aiding self-war against criminality and sins, who knows whether this is responsible for the sorry case of the nation? If as a nation and people they begin to do things rightly without partiality in justice, it is certain that Nigeria will get it right in a blink of an eye.
