No fewer than 2,000 inmates in Nigerian prisons are said to be on death row while an alarming 75 per cent are on awaiting trial.
The total prison population in Nigeria is over 68,000 comprising – 17,686 convicts (4,080 lifers; 2,000 condemned convicts) and over 40,000 Awaiting Trial Persons.
The large number of prisoners on death row can be directly attributed to the refusal of state governor’s to implement their sentences.
It appears that a lot of governors have made it a policy that no one in their respective states will be executed as long as they are in office.
According to an online medium, the large number of inmates is beginning to strain the budget of the Ministry of Interior as a result of the failure of the criminal justice administration system.
According to Mr Tony Ojukwu of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), “This is because cases are not going on in court or they are not moving as fast as possible so that as people are coming in they are going out.
“A situation where somebody is supposed to stay two years in prison for instance if convicted, but has stayed five years while awaiting trial.
“What kind of compensation will you give to him if at the end, considering the fact that our constitution says that you are innocent until proven guilty.
“What happens if a man or woman who has been kept in trial for five years is now proven innocent?
“That means he has stayed in detention for five years for nothing or for an offence he did not commit.
“So we think that the criminal justice administration should be improved.”
However, a Lagos-based security consultant, Dr Yusuf Ahmed, believes that from the standpoint of the Federal Government, the situation could not have come at a worse time.
“The nation’s overall economic decline has cut state and federal aid to the prisons systems,” he says, “making it difficult for them to support the increased demand for prison services.”
Meanwhile, the population of the prison personnel is increasing with some inmates living in the same cells with those suffering from terminal diseases, mental illness, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
Dr Ahmed described the facilities at the prisons as “deplorable and overstretched” with most of the prisons overloaded. Reliable information has it that about N6 billion was claimed by prison food contractors alone last year.
Although it must be said that the Minister of Interior, Gen Abdulrahman Dambazau (rtd) since his appointment has approved and implemented some uplift in the living conditions of the prisons, and has recently inaugurated a committee to look into possible options of granting clemency to some aging, terminally sick and good conduct inmates in a bid to decongest the prisons.
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