In December of 2017, the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Prison
Service, Mr Jaafaru Ahmed, in his presentation at the Penal Reform Media
Network (PERMNET) noted that in Nigeria’s Prisons, about 66% of the
prison population were awaiting trial inmates. While this figure is alarming,
it has been argued by many to be a gross understatement of the awaiting
trial prison ratio. According to the recent 2018 reports by the Prisoners
Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA), over 80% of the current prison
population in Nigeria is constituted of awaiting trial inmates, many of
whom have remained incarcerated for years for issues as simple as failure
to pay small debts or street trading. Having no money to afford a lawyer or
meet financial conditions for their bail, indeed it would not be far from the
truth to say that most awaiting trial inmates remain in prison in Nigeria
simply because they are poor.
AWAITING TRIAL: HOW IT WORKS
Sometime in March of 2018, I was at a Magistrate Court in Lagos, Nigeria
and noticed that 23 Defendants where brought into the court room on a
criminal charge. They all looked tattered, hungry and poor. I tried to find out
what they had done but was unable to get the briefing before the
Magistrate walked. The case was called, the charges were read and to
mysurprise the 23 Defendants had all been arrested by the Task force for
various forms of petty trading. Poor and unable to afford a Lawyer to
defend them it was all too easy to impose bail sum of seventy thousand
Naira and adjourn the matter till the next month.
23 pretty traders whose life work was not up to ten thousand naira granted
a bail condition of seventy thousand naira and sent to prison until they
meet the bail conditions. They had no family apart from each other, they
had no phones, they had no money. They were just sent to grow the prison
awaiting trial prison statistics while their file gathers up dust in court
pending when their trial will be conducted.
Admittedly, this is not the story of every prisoner incarcerated, but the stories of many who have spent several years behind bars, yet to be
convicted, is as pitiful as the case of the 23.
LEGISLATIVE RESPONSE AS A CURE?
It is obvious that with the ease of prison remand in Nigeria, congestion of
prisons in an issue of great concern to our Central Government. According
to reports from persons who have once been inmates in one of Nigeria's
most dreaded prisons; the Kiri-kiri Maximum prisons, Apapa, Lagos State,
it is not an un-common sight to find fifty prisons "packed" in a small prison
cell. There they had to eat, urinate and defecate. The spread of various
form of disease is at its peak in the prisons. This is not only a human right
concern but also a state concern.
Part of the response to the problem has been introduced via legislation
which seek to address the central problem of over crowded prisons. For
instance, the Lagos State Administration of Criminal Justice Law 2011 and
the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 both contain provisions on
non-custodial sentencing (i.e. sentencing which do not require
imprisonment e.g rendering community service). However, in a country
where 80% of prisoners are awaiting trial, the solution must focus on
reducing the length of time spent “awaiting a trial”.
Appreciably, the administrative criminal laws mentioned above have
sought ways to address the issue of lengthy and delayed trials but
somehow the problem of proper implementation of the law remainsifficult
to resolve as the judicial process in Nigeria looks, all too used to the
system of long adjournments.
SHUTTING THE PRISONS, OPENING JUSTICE
In Nigeria, the criminal procedural laws do not provide for compensation or
damages for time wasted in prison when, after years awaiting trial, your
trial is concluded and you are found to be innocent. It is usually said, the
only compensation for your suffering would be the fact that you are now
free. This is not justice to the Accused who has lost his productive years
dying away in prison, but it is the position of the justice system. Therefore, since there is no justice is keeping a man unduly in prison when he is still
presumed innocent, is appeals to logic that closing the doors of the prisons
only opens the doors of justice.
In achieving this Prison rehabilitative justice, all stakeholders in the justice
sector must realize that not every chargeable offence should lead to
committal to prison. If the 23 petty traders had been cautioned and
educated on the areas they can legally sell their merchandise, they would
go into the society educating others and being productive to themselves
and society. We must focus on bringing people out of incarceration
because our prisons do not even have the space for them. Judges and
Magistrates should have the power for immediate pardon of minor
offences rather than adjourning to try a case of "petty trading" which would
likely need no where but impose untold hardship on the Accused persons.
The above idea is not foreign to law, in foreign jurisdiction Magistrates are
given that much discretion to exercise. Until we find what works, however,
it is hoped that while the doors of the prisons may not be closed, we
can all play a role in bringing out the inmates one person at a time.
Oliver Omoredia
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