Concerns expressed by local and international human rights groups over the safety of inmates in Nigeria’s Correctional Centres amid the coronavirus pandemic are a wake-up call for the Nigerian authorities. Confirmed cases of infection in the country from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control were 254 as of Tuesday with six persons dead. Over 1.44 million people have contracted the virus globally, leading to more than 83,400 deaths. As a result, health facilities have been over-stretched in Europe and the United States. Hysterically, major cities across the world have been locked down. But more petrifying is the cruel fact that there is no cure for the disease just yet.
Besides COVID-19 being highly contagious, the squalid and congested nature of Nigeria’s prisons, undoubtedly one of the most intolerable globally, put the fate of the inmates in sharp canvas. There are 244 of such centres, many of which were built in the colonial era and housing 74,000 inmates, out of which 52,000 of them, representing over 70 per cent, are awaiting trial.
These inmates are as endangered as the over 1.9 million Internally Displaced Persons scattered all over the states in the North, following from Boko Haram’s atrocious war, the devastation from banditry and soulless killings by Fulani herdsmen. The inmates of orphanages and the physically challenged also belong to this group of the most vulnerable to the virus. Government at all levels should act fast to protect them.
Amnesty International, in a statement last week, noted: “Congestion in Nigerian prisons is staggering and a threat to lives of prisoners, especially at this time that requires social distancing to prevent the spread of the disease.” Details of the sordid conditions in the prisons are alarming. Kaduna Prison, built to house 478 inmates, accommodates 1,480 inmates. Kirikiri Prisons in Lagos, meant for 500 people, house 1,601, while Port Harcourt Prison has 4,576 inmates as against its capacity of 804 people. This incongruity prevails in all the 244 centres.
Congestion represents an assault on the human dignity of the inmates and their right to life guaranteed by Sections 33(1) and 34(1) of the 1999 Constitution. It is practically impossible for hygiene and other health regulations to prevail in such environments. The official response by prison authorities that new inmates would not be admitted and that all personnel will abide by the rules of handwashing and sanitising are not sufficient safeguards.
Social distancing, which is a critical virus spread containment strategy, is impossible to achieve under the prevailing conditions at the centres. Therefore, their rapid decongestion is the way out. Iran and Indonesia are among several countries that are releasing non-violent inmates as part of the anti-coronavirus war, freeing 85,000 and 22,000 prisoners respectively so far. Up to 4,000 “low-risk” inmates are also to be released in Britain.
The Federal Government had last year recognised the need for reforms. It repealed the Prisons Act 2004 and replaced it with the Nigeria Correctional Service Act 2019. At a workshop in November on the implementation, Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, called for speedy decongestion in line with international human rights practices. A Presidential Committee for the Decongestion of Correctional Centres was set up.
Unfortunately, policies in the country often do not go beyond sound bites and the abject conditions of the prisons remain the same six months after. Federal and state attorneys-general, judges, governors and magistrates should act expeditiously now. The Legal Defence and Association Project, Lawyers Alert and like-minded non-profits should quickly engage all the actors to reverse the situation.
Non-custodial sentencing and community service are legal mechanisms with which prisons are decongested in many jurisdictions in the West. Sadly, suspects with minor offences and innocent people here are indiscriminately arrested by the police for the singular purpose of extortion. They end up in detention and abandoned for years, once they cannot bribe their way out. And because of corruption, case files disappear thereby increasing the number of awaiting trial inmates. Some end up spending more years in incarceration than they would have served if they had been prosecuted speedily and convicted accordingly. Consequently, now is the time for the correctional centres to live up to their new name by releasing those that deserve the gesture.
Today, the inmates are as frightened as citizens in the larger society, demonstrated in the attempted jail-break in the Kaduna Prison last week over COVID-19. Violent protests by prison inmates are routine here because of their conditions: the cells are overcrowded; prisoners defecate and urinate in their cells, are poorly fed and lack healthcare. Worse, the compromised criminal justice delivery system weighs heavily against the poor, resulting in non-trial or unwarranted long adjournments of their cases, which invariably prolong their incarceration.
Under the law, the 52,000 inmates awaiting trial are innocent until proved guilty. The Federal Government has dilly-dallied for too long in reforming the prisons. The COVID19 emergency presents a window to free those that qualify for it. This odd scenario could not have arisen if the 19 medium-sized prisons “…whose contracts were awarded in 1981 had not been abandoned,” a former Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, noted.
These citizens, whose liberties have been abridged, besides the protection the constitution offers them, are sheltered by international protocols such as the Geneva Convention, the UN Convention against Torture, and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which Nigeria is a signatory to.
It is callous for public office holders to have easy access to COVID-19 tests and face masks government provided, at the expense of the most vulnerable. Extending these to prisons, orphanages and Internally Displacement Persons’ camps will help avert an avoidable national tragedy. It is cheery; however, that the Borno State Government is conscious of the hazard the pandemic poses and has resolved to decongest the IDP camps in the state, even when it has not spread there. All concerned should demonstrate a similar sense of urgency.
