Despite efforts by the government to decongest the prisons, the number of inmates is on the rise. Last week, during the Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Badagry Branch, Lagos, some lawyers examined the issue and profferred solutions to the problem. ADEBISI ONANUGA reports.
Lawyers and other stakeholders in the Justice Sector Reform have proferred solution to prison congestion in the country.
This was at a seminar theme, Prison Congestion and administration of justice in the 21st Century Nigeria which held in Ojo, Lagos as part of activities marking the Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Badagry Branch.
Participants agreed that the congestion at the prisons is caused by awaiting trial inmates and not the convicted ones.
Chairman of NBA Badagry branch, Chief Chris Okoye lamented that the problem of prison congestion had been successfully tackled by past governments.
“Our prisons are anything but corrective. They are mostly congested with inmates who see themselves as being condemned to hell fire. Even the ones who are on remand and are still presumed innocent because they have not been found guilty are, no doubt, also being deprived of their dignity as they languish in our congested prisons”, Okoye noted.
“If justice is three fold – justice to the victim of the crime, justice to the society and justice to the accused person who is being detained in the prison where he has to stand or squat all night and day in a little corner because there is no space, it behoves to ask the type of justice he will get when he has suffered untold hardship in the prison. Can any justice be administered to a prison inmate in a congested and overcrowded prison?” he asked.
A Badagry-based lawyer, Senu Olufemi Avoseh, in his paper canvassed constitutional amendment so that issues of prisons could be removed from the exclusive legislative list to the residual list so that states could be given powers to build prisons to ensure that convicts and persons awaiting trials in the states can be kept in state prison.
He said this would allow for space in federal prisons. He said the arrangement, whereby all convicts and awaiting trial persons from the different levels of the court are kept in federal prisons have been responsible for the overcrowding of the prisons.
Avoseh lamented that the prisons have remained congested because bail conditions are not easily fulfilled by the awaiting trial persons and for other reasons considered unimportant, when trial against an accused person is yet to commence. This resulted in overstretching of prison facilities with the attendant illness, poor feeding, destruction and death, ‘’ asking he the courts should be encouraged to enforce only laws that would not lead to congestion of prisons. Avoseh explained that it was to stem the tide of prison congestion that the Criminal Justice (Release from Custody)(Special Provisions) Act Cap 40 Laws of the Federation 1999was passed.
He noted the state Chief Judges of and governors have been releasing awaiting trial inmates from prisons yearly in exercise of their powers under the law. He also said rather than prison sentences, magistrates should be encouraged to commit convicted persons to community services or that such person, if not a Nigerian, be deported to his country to serve his prison terms.
He said they could also take advantage of plea bargaining, whereby a convict is set free after returning all he stole instead of being committed to prison.
Activist and former Secretary Campaign for Democracy and Human Rights (CDHR), Malachy Ugwummadu, painted a gloomy picture of the situation in the prisons. Quoting statistics from the International Centre for Prison Studies, he said no fewer than 57,121 inmates are languishing in 240 Nigerian prisons as at October 31, last year. According to him, 17,544, representing 31 per cent, are convicted inmates while the remaining 39,577 inmates, which constitute 69 per cent are awaiting trials persons (ATP). He said the data established the terrifying degree of abuse to which the fundamental rights of Nigerians, under the 1999 Constitution, including prisoners, particularly regarding their rights to fair hearing as regards their innocence as stated in Section 36(5), right to personal liberty (Section 35), dignity of human persons (Section 34) are violated, exposed and rendered lame and useless.
Ugwummadu said the innovations in the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 assented to by former President Goodluck Jonathan is capable of tackling prison congestion, if strictly followed. Until the new law came into being, he noted that criminal procedure was governed by either the Criminal Procedure Act or Criminal Procedure Code, noting that for years, these legislations were applied by each state without any significant improvement.
Instead, he observed that the criminal justice system is polarised along regional lines and lost its capacity to quickly meet the needs of the society in relation to rising wave of crime, speedily bringing criminals to book and protect the victims of crime. “The ACJA 2015 responds to Nigeria’s dire need of a harmonised legislation that will transform the criminal justice system to reflect the true objects of the constitution and the demands of a democratic society in eliminating unacceptable delays in the disposal of criminal cases thereby improving the efficiency of the criminal justice administration in the country, including prison congestion”, he said.
He sought the merger of the provisions of the CPA and CPC into one federal Act that would apply in all federal courts, pointing out that while the new Act substantially preserves the criminal procedures, it also introduces innovative provisions that would enhance the efficiency of the justice system. He listed some of the provisions of the new Act, which he said, are geared towards prison decongestion to include Sections 16, 29, 33, 34, 68, 111, 296, 315, 319, 396, 460, 461, 467 and 468, among others. Ugwummadu explained, for instance, that Part 45 introduced the parole system in the administration of criminal justice, adding that Section 468 of the act empowers the Comptroller-General of Prisons to recommend to the court that a prisoner serving his sentence in prison is of good behaviour, having served at least one-third of his term, that the remaining be suspended and the prisoner shall be released from prison after undergoing a rehabilitation programme. Section 460 of the Act provides for suspended sentences and Community Service for lesser offences not involving use of arms, offensive weapon, sexual offences or an offence which sentence exceeds imprisonment of over three years; Section 461 provides for the Chief Judge to establish in every Judicial Division a Community Service Centre while Section 315 provides that if a judge or magistrate is unavoidably absent, perhaps because of elevation to a higher court, his judgement may be delivered by another judge.
To Ugwummadu, the provisions of the ACJA 2015 would revolutionise and accomplish great reforms in the criminal justice system of the country. He, however, stressed the need for every stakeholder in the sector, including police officers, magistrates, judicial officers to play their part and work together to achieve the laudable goals the Acts was set to achieve.
“There has to be some synergy between the executive and the judiciary so as to give life to the provisions of this Act. Surely, if lawyers, policemen, prison officials, magistrates and judges and all stakeholders alike ready themselves to surmount every challenge, then the future of the criminal justice system is bright and bright indeed,”he stressed.
