IT took 11 years in the making before President Muhammadu Buhari finally signed the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) Bill. Applauded and believed to be overdue, the law is expected to address the problems that bedevilled the defunct Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS), the NCS’s predecessor. It is also expected that the president will walk his talk this time by ensuring that the crises that made the NPS inoperable are resolved quickly and comprehensively. As laudable as the bill is, however, it is not altogether clear how the president hopes to give effect to the changes that birthed the NCS, especially in the face of a defective federal structure.
Sponsored by a former senator, Victor Ndoma-Egba, and presented in 2008 during the Umaru Yar’Adua presidency, the bill suffered several delays, including President Buhari’s withdrawal of assent when at last the bill first came to his table in April. The president had pointed out that some of the provisions of the bill, particularly its funding sources, were inconsistent with the independence of the judiciary. His objections sounded altruistic; but the devil is in the detail. Re-presented in July, the president finally assented the bill on August 14. Nearly everyone interested in prisons reform has lauded the initiative, from the sponsors of the bill, to the legislature, and to the presidency. But many experts have also expressed reservations that whereas the new NCS law is timely and relevant, there is not nearly as much hope that it would go significantly beyond spreading a veneer of change on the cadaverous NPS.
The believers are right, but the sceptics are even more right. For the believers, some of the provisions in the new law are indeed salutary and should to a large extent address a few of the pressing problems afflicting the prisons. First the law divides the correctional service into two: Custodial Service and Non-custodial Service. This is appropriate, even though these changes could still have been done under the old prisons. Then it empowers officials of the correctional service to decline the admission of more inmates once a correctional centre had been filled to capacity. According to the law, “In the event that the prison has exceeded its maximum capacity, the State Comptroller shall notify the Chief Judge of the State or the State Criminal Justice Committee. Upon receipt of the notification the Chief Judge or the State Criminal Justice Committee shall within a period not exceeding one month take necessary steps to rectify the overcrowding. Without prejudice to Subsection 4, the State Comptroller of Prisons in consultation with the Prison Superintendent shall have the power to reject more intake of prisoners where it is apparent that the prison in question is filled to capacity.”
The law also provides for other laudable changes, including spelling out custodial and non-custodial measures that would aid the reformation of inmates and their reintegration into society, and lessen or altogether eliminate overcrowding. There is little doubt that if the provisions of the law are scrupulously adhered to, a crucial part of the criminal justice system would be ameliorated. Not only would the cost of sustaining inmates by significantly reduced, it should overall aid the administration of justice, redirecting it away from the needlessly punitive approach to incarceration to the more sensibly rewarding correctional and reformatory approach. Believers who point at these advantages are not exaggerating when they pontificate about the beneficial changes afoot.
But sceptics fear that in the final analysis, and given Nigeria’s legendry sluggishness in following through laudable ideas and policies, the new development in the prisons may never exceed change of name, as other name changes in the country signify. For the name change to be fundamental and impactful, sceptics point out that the government must do the following: carry out infrastructural and equipment upgrades; adequately fund the correctional service; significantly improve on its data management and monitoring, especially in relation to non-custodial service appertaining to probation, community service and parole, among many others; build more and upgrade existing correctional centres; amend the constitution to put the correctional service under the concurrent legislative list; and review revenue allocation to enable states participate in funding and running correctional centres.
Quite clearly, to be able to satisfy the sceptics and ensure that the reforms are fundamental and meaningful, the government would need to inspire judicial and police reforms to substantially reduce inefficiency in both sectors. Indeed, the entire criminal justice system would need to be comprehensively revamped for the Correctional Service Law to stand a chance of working. There is nothing yet to suggest that the Buhari presidency is thinking of such reforms. The police are poorly funded, are saddled with humongous responsibilities, are poorly trained and equipped, and operate archaic system of policing. Consequently, their investigative competence has often been compromised or even questioned, while they are sometimes unresponsive to crimes needing urgent investigative attention. There is, therefore, no chance of speeding up trials, leading to terrible backlogs and logjams.
The judiciary itself, as the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Ibrahim Tanko Mohammad, indicated recently, is poorly funded and short-staffed. They are, therefore, unable to deal with cases before them with dispatch because the courts are analogue and in many instances, particularly in the states, archaic. Even the correctional service, the focus of the new law, is so heavily underfunded that sometimes they are hamstrung to transport suspects to court on adjourned dates, not to talk of feeding them and giving them adequate medical attention when the need arises. There have of course been some improvements, but progress has been very slow and amount to a drop in the ocean. In summary, the criminal justice system is in dire need of a complete makeover. Other than name change and lofty operational precepts, there is nothing in the horizon to indicate a comprehensive reform of the criminal justice system. And because the correctional service does not operate in isolation, it is hard to see how the new law would automatically produce a better and desirable incarceration system.
Ultimately, none of the changes and reforms Nigeria desperately desires will be made without a comprehensive restructuring of the country’s political foundations. As distasteful as the word may sound, without restructuring, it is impossible for the country to enjoy the changes they seek, either in their correctional system or in any other part of the system in the country. Structural change, if it comes, is fundamental to the new Nigeria the people and, paradoxically, the government crave. It is restructuring that will make it feasible for federating units to raise the required funds needed to organise themselves adequately or profitably. It is restructuring that will afford federating units the chance to run an efficient police system, and pay living wage rather than bicker over minimum wage when they congregate over revenue allocation in Abuja every month for handouts. Federating units generally have different policing, prisons and judicial needs. They must retain the liberty and ingenuity to run at their own pace and organise themselves along their own cultures and scope. In any case, decades of centralising the police and the prisons, when it does not hurt to decentralise them, have proved inefficient, demoralising and retrogressive.
It has been about two months since the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) Bill was signed into law. Other than the applause it has generated and the enthusiasm NCS staff have shown, nothing worth remarking has really been done. After 11 years of working that law, surely the reason for it cannot be that the country should ogle it, instead of implementing it. If it is to stand any chance of success, its fundamentals must be challenged and comprehensively reworked.
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