Prisons are public correctional institutions established by government where inmates – suspects and convicts – are detained. Concerned citizens observe that over the years, the situation in Nigerian prison cells across the country has become miserable. They observe that some of the inmates have even spent more years in prison than the actual years required if they had been convicted.
On Wednesday, August 19, 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari signed a bill into law. This bill is geared towards changing the name of the Nigeria Prisons Service into the Nigeria Correctional Service. This development is very significant, considering that it bothers on a salient aspect of social existence and intercourse, which is crime. To put it differently, there is no crime-free society.
The crime rate varies from one society to another. The correctional facilities play a vital role in determining this variance. Thus, correction occupies an important place in crime discourses, specifically crime prevention and control. The prison is an aspect of correction. Correction is broader in that it goes beyond ostracising the offender only. It also sees to his rehabilitation, restitution and re-socialisation.
Therefore, the move to change the Nigeria Prisons Service to the Nigeria Correctional Service is a commendable one, especially as it is against the background that there are many things wrong with the Nigeria Prisons Service. Moving forward, I dare say that the semantic transformation alone is not enough. There is a lot of work to do, if truly rehabilitation and not punishment is the watchword here.
Modern correctional facilities are fast leaving Nigeria behind, given that no substantial restructuring has been accorded to it. This explains why the rate of criminal activities is high in Nigeria. In saner climes, prisons are for reformatory activities. But in Nigeria, prisons harden inmates the more due to the level of punishment meted to them. This is against the submission of Michael Foucault that discipline is not about capital punishment but ‘space’, which enhances reformation. For example, Zaynab Aliyu, who was accused of trafficking drug by the Saudi Arabia authorities and remanded in prison, was reported to have learnt pure Arabic and committed half of the Quran to heart during her sojourn in a Saudi dungeon.
The opposite is the case in Nigeria where no value is added to offenders. The Nigeria Prisons Service has failed the society in its entirety. This is evident in the level of recidivism that stares most Nigerian prisons in the face. The Nigerian prison system breeds the criminal tendencies in an individual-offender. A petty criminal may come out of the system to become a die-hard criminal.
The living condition in Nigerian prisons is very harsh. The problem of overcrowding is another serious challenge, with many of the inmates awaiting trials. There are no genuine rehabilitation programmes for inmates. Rather, they are given demanding tasks and exposed to capital punishments which can only harden them the more. To this day, there are still insinuations that in Nigerian prisons a new inmate is given the beating of his life to serve as a ‘welcome party’. So, how does an offender come out of this shambolic system re-socialised?
The phenomenon of stratification is another major problem in the Nigerian prison system. Some prisoners are more equal than others. While some ‘big prisoners’ spend their jail terms in a conducive environment, common prisoners continue to languish in deteriorated blocks in prison. This is why Marxists and most conflict theorists hold that the prison is also a haven of social inequality. Nothing could attest to this than the state of the Nigerian prison system.
However, it is not over until it is over. It is hoped that this development will not just exist on paper. Indeed, if the problem of rehabilitation, overcrowding, structure, inequality could be addressed in the prisons, the rate at which criminal activities occur would reduce drastically.
Now the question is how can the judiciary go about decongesting the Nigerian prison system so that there will be enough space there?
I recall going on a tour of four prison formations in Ogun State in company with the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Mosunmola Dipeolu. Although she lamented the congestion of the prisons across the state, she admitted that it was beyond the capacity of the state government.
During the tour, it was observed that some inmates were remanded in prison custody on the orders of the court. It was also learnt that the cases files of some of the detainees, who had been there for up to eight to nine years without facing trial, had got lost.
Promising to do her best within the ambit of the law to make sure those prison formations received the necessary attention they deserved, Justice Dipeolu had to ensure that 21 inmates were unconditionally released during the quarterly jail delivery exercise, which is in line with the Constitution. She admonished the released prisoners to endeavour to reform themselves and refrain from crime.
The Ogun State Controller of Correctional Centres, Mr. Victor Benson, who was represented by his Deputy in charge of Ibara Correctional Service, Mr Godwin Onokhowomomo, called on government to build more correctional centres with modern equipment so as to decongest the centres across the state and teach them how to fend for themselves if eventually released from the prisons.
Benson hinted at overcrowding in Ogun correctional centres. He said the Ibara Correctional Centre, which was originally built to accommodate 510 inmates now shelters 1,189 inmates.
He added that the Ilaro Correctional Centre, which had initially accommodated 126 inmates, had increased the number of inmates to 532. According to him, out of 526 inmates, only 167 are convicted, while the remaining 359 are awaiting trial for various offences in 17 different courts scattered across the seven local government areas of the state.
The above scenario presents a classic situation in congested Nigerian prisons. Unfortunately nobody cares about it. The judiciary is trying hard to do something, but the point is that there are too many cases on the dockets and there are too few judges and magistrates to handle them.
Many prisoners do not have the necessary funds to get their cases dispensed with. So, what should be the next step? As it stands, the prisons have to be decongested because they cost a lot of money to run. What can the government do to make the prisons less crowded with hardened criminals and victims of circumstance?
There is a need for the Federal and State Governments to do something about the current situation in Nigerian prisons. Legal practitioners should also help to decongest the prisons. They can either work in conjunction with the Legal Aid Council, take on pro bono cases for the less privileged or even embark on campaigns to help some of the prisoners who are really looking for the help they cannot afford. It might not mean much in the short term, but in the long run, it will certainly help to achieve a better society.
Orunbon contributed this article from Abeokuta, Ogun State
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