Inmates at various correctional centres across the country have alleged that they are being poorly fed.
Many of them, who spoke to our correspondents, decried that they were dying of hunger.
This is as the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) and the independent panel raised last September by the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to probe allegations of corruption and abuse of office against officers of the Service, disagreed over the inmates’ claims of hunger.
While the panel confirmed that inmates were dying of hunger, the acting Comptroller-General of the NCoS, described it as an exaggeration, saying there was no statistics to prove the allegations.
Inmates at the Ikoyi Custodial Centre alleged that the meals served them were worse than dog’s food.
Speaking to Daily Trust, one of the inmates, who simply identified himself as Tony, described life inside the facility as regimented.
“The pattern of feeding itself is regimented. We eat three times a day, but even a dog will reject the food served to us. Our saving grace is that some of us are allowed to buy food from the staff canteen. If anyone depends solely on the food served by the authority, I bet you that such a person will die.
“A lot of inmates suffer from malnutrition and are often rushed to the sick bay. Our usual pattern of food is beans in the morning, eba served with watery soup without meat or fish in the afternoon and dry garri in the evening. The cooked beans are usually full of stones, bean shells and weevils since it is not properly picked before cooking. One can count the number of beans inside a bowl of water served as a meal.
“Inmates are served just one or two spoonfuls of beans, which they call a portion, along with dry garri. I usually mix my beans and garri as the garri will soak up the entire water.
“The food is not even enough to feed a chicken. I hardly eat when eba and egusi soup or okra are served. I vomited on my first day at the Ikoyi custodial centre, but I eventually got used to it when the reality of where I was dawned on me.
“The sight of the soup can make one throw up. One can separate the water from the egusi. The beans look like something they scooped from a nearby drainage,” Tony said.
Another inmate, remanded in 2023 for allegedly bolting away with his master’s money, corroborated Tony’s claims, saying, “At some point after eating the often badly cooked beans with stones inside, I would be having a running stomach for most of the day. “The food is terrible. Sometimes, I prefer enduring hunger to eating the meals they serve us.”
An officer at the Ikoyi custodial centre, who also spoke to Daily Trust on the condition of anonymity, disclosed that inmates were fed twice daily, “contrary to the three-square-meal approved by the government.”
Recounting his experience at the Ikoyi prison facility, an inmate told our correspondent at the Igbosere High Court, Lagos, that inmates do not cook their own food, but that meals are prepared by warders or those contracted to prepare food and served.
“I wonder who eats the fish, as we are not served fish or meat. Only the inmates who have constituted themselves into authority in the different cells get to eat heads of fish.
“You are considered lucky if you get to see pieces of fish inside the watery soup. However, inmates who get to work in the kitchens are lucky because they get to eat what they want aside from the normal rations,” he added.
The source stated that those serving their jail terms usually receive two meals a day – breakfast and dinner, adding that the food served include beans, rice, eba and garri.
He stated that the soup is usually watery and that one can separate water and egusi from the bowl.
“Inmates typically fund their purchases through money sent to them by families and friends or by begging when they go to court”, he stated.
‘Hunger killing inmates at Kirikiri Maximum Prison’
“Hunger is killing people. It’s killing a lot of inmates in Kirikiri Prison. Whenever an inmate dies there, if you check, you will realise that there’s an element of hunger”, said Ibrahim Babangida, who was recently released from the Kirikiri Maximum Security Custodial Centre, Lagos State.
Babangida, from Adamawa State, who told RFI Hausa that he was arrested for sleeping under a bridge in Lagos, said: “There was neither food nor portable water. The food was like poison because it caused you to have rashes. I now have rashes all over my body, which is caused by the food, which is also so little. Each inmate’s ration is measured in a tin of milk; imagine if that is enough. People are dying due to a lack of food.”
“The food is too small, not more than three morsels, which cannot sustain someone even if he is given three square meals,” he said.
Babangida described the food at the facility as as “poison” and alleged that a certain chemical was being added to their meals to make them weak and prevent them from revolting.
“If you eat the food today, the next day you will have rashes. They cook with a chemical called ‘scattering’ powder.
“When you eat that substance, you lose strength for anything. You become lazy and as weak as a 100-year-old, and regardless of the remedy you get, you can only regain strength after the effective period of the chemical has elapsed. That is why the powder is added to our food because when we eat, it weakens our body as if we were seriously beaten,” Babangida said.
It was learnt that inmates at the Goron Dutse Medium Security Custodial Centre were served raw food. The facility, established for 500 inmates but later upgraded to accommodate 700 inmates, currently houses over 1,000 inmates.
A freed inmate, who spent about 18 months at the facility, said inmates were served raw food.
“We began cooking our food while serving because the food wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t nice.
“The only inmates that seem to be enjoying their stay are those on death row and those serving life jail terms,” he said.
Sources at the Kano Central Custodial Centre, Kurmawa, told Daily Trust that inmates on death row were given double rations and their meals, usually beans, pap, kunu, rice, garri and tuwo, prepared specially.
Investigations have shown that inmates in the custodial centres in Cross River State are being fed once a day.
It was gathered that the inmates are being poorly fed with half-cooked beans, sandy rice and “soup meant for dogs”.
Findings showed that the inmates are fed with a few spoons of rice, which were not de-stoned and stewed without meat or fish on Wednesdays and Sundays.
They are also given garri and watery soup once daily. But the inmates are reported to be rejecting the soup because it is always without salt or spices.
Some non-governmental organisations and churches that access the Afokang facility in Calabar weekly to support inmates with food and drugs also confirmed poor feeding at the facility.
Edwin Asibor, Executive Director, Securing the Creative Goldmine in Youths Initiative, said inmates in custodial centres in Edo State needed external help to survive hunger.
“What they are getting is not up to three square meals, and for anyone to survive in the prison, you need external help in terms of feeding.
“Parents of inmates in prison augment their children’s feeding as they have to give them money and also buy food items for them, Asibor said.
An ex-inmate at a custodial centre in Edo said: “Though the government provides feeding and drugs, among others, for the inmates, the officers were not allowing us to enjoy them. Some of the drugs provided for inmates are being used by the correctional officers.
“The food can’t take inmates anywhere. For instance, if the government says it is feeding an inmate with N500, what they (officers) are giving the person is not up to N100.
“Recently, I was in prison for standing as a surety to a suspect who absconded, I still meet the same treatment. In the morning, we were given a spoonful of beans (medium) and a tin of garri”.
Inmates at the Maximum Custodial Centre in Makurdi, Benue State, are fed twice in a day, mainly morning and evening, with unhealthy meals, sources told Daily Trust.
They said the inmates are mostly fed with pap in the morning and given maize flour meals with poorly prepared watery soups in the evening.
“The meals are not healthy,” a source said.
Of the sources said inmates are fed with pap, rice and beans at different times twice daily.
“Sometimes, they are served with rice, pap or beans in the morning, while in the evening, they eat maize flour or garri with any kind of soup.
“The food given to inmates at the Maximum Custodial Centre in Makurdi is generally of poor quality and insufficient quantity. The meals lack nutrients, often consisting of watery soups, small portions of beans, rice or garri and minimal protein,” the source added.
Inmates at the Maiduguri Maximum Custodial Centre are served “meager portions” of rations, Daily Trust was told.
A source there said: “Government is treating these inmates like animals, not as human beings.
“The contractor feeding the inmates always complain of the high costs of food items, therefore, cannot provide sufficient food items to cook for the inmates.
“What they do now is rationing. At the end of every month, they cut down the number of times inmates eat.
“For instance, in a week, if the inmates are eating rice four times and beans three times, they will reduce their consumption to two or three times a week and replace them with less expensive stables like garri. At times, they will even skip meals to cope with the situation.”
The source said the use of firewood to cook for the inmates was adding to the cost of feeding.
“We expect that when the federal government reviewed the feeding amount, the contractors would switch to a gas cooker, but they didn’t,” he stated.
An independent investigative panel assembled by the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to investigate alleged corruption and other violations against the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS), had recently confirmed that inmates were dying from hunger.
The secretary of the panel, Dr Uju Agomoh, while briefing the media last month, said their findings showed that many inmates in most custodial centres were facing death from hunger due to poor feeding and rampant food racketeering.
She said, “During our inspection visit as a panel, in February 2025, there was no food up to the approved weekly standards by the Service. The stock they are supposed to have for at least seven days, as is the practice, is not being implemented.
“This is about being open to knowing where the problem is because many inmates are dying due to a lack of food.
“I have personally been going to correctional centres for more than 30 years, but I have never seen what we see these days. There have always been problems, but it has never been the way it is now.’’
Agomoh, who is also the founder of the Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare Actions (PRAWA), said that transparency was crucial for the investigative panel’s goal of enhancing efficiency within the NCoS.
She warned that starving inmates poses a danger, as hunger could fuel aggression.
She said the panel’s investigation also revealed that prison officers in charge of food supply prioritised profit-making.
She stated: “First, the quantity that is provided is small. Second, this drive for profit-making worsens the process. The officers in charge are one of the checks and balances for the contractors.’’
The panel’s secretary requested a response from the Nigerian Correctional Service regarding the implementation of Section 14, Subsection 4 of the NCoS Act.
Reacting in an exclusive interview, the NCoS’ acting Controller-General, Sylvester Nwakuche, said the panel was exaggerating the situation.
He said there were no statistics to show that inmates were dying of hunger.
The CG alleged that the panel could be making assumptions.
He disclosed that a prison ration committee had been established to monitor the quality and quantity of food served to inmates.
Nwakuche said the team regularly conducted routine checks. – Daily Trust.
