- News of possible relocation of the Ikoyi Prison in Lagos has positive implications, and may well be the much-needed fillip for the country’s prison system
Reports quoted the Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare, as saying that the 61-year-old Ikoyi Prison had outlived its usefulness where it is currently located. He provided information about the envisaged relocation during an interaction with reporters after monitoring the October edition of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise in Ikoyi-Obalende Local Council Development Area of the state.
It was in the context of environmental management that he said: ”We also visited Ikoyi Prison to see the challenge there. I can assure you that we will tackle it. We will see how we would work with the Federal Prison Service to ensure that we provide sewage system.”
However, according to the commissioner, beyond the question of environmental pollution and the undesirable consequences, there is the question of locational irrelevance. Adejare said: “There is a larger thing coming into play soon; that is relocation of the prison. The facility had passed its usefulness. The most valuable land in Africa is there. We should not have such in that location. We are discussing with the Federal Government to deal with the relocation. In the interim, the Lagos State Government will provide the prison with better sewage system.”
Indeed, it is a measure of inevitable social dynamism that the Ikoyi Prison is now considered out of place in a place it has occupied for over half a century. There is no doubt that the locality in which the prison is situated has evolved over time, and has acquired a prosperous character. It is, therefore, unsurprising that there is a conflict between location and locale.
But the matter is much more complicated than success being uncomfortable with the presence of the prison as a metaphor for failure. The reality is that Ikoyi Prison, like many other prisons across the country, needs a new lease of life, which cannot be guaranteed at its present site and in its present condition.
It is on record that the members of a Senate Committee on Interior who toured prisons in the country noted in their report that “a majority of the cells leak during the rains and the perimeter walls and some cells have, in some cases, collapsed.” The report also said: “In many of the prisons visited, the committee was moved by the plight of the inmates; many of the cells meant to accommodate about 50 inmates were found to accommodate about 150 inmates, all cramped together.”
Chief among the problems facing the country’s prisons is the issue of congestion, which continues to overstretch prison facilities resulting in deplorable conditions within the prison walls. It is noteworthy that the Prisons Service records, as of August 29, showed a total inmates population of 63, 000, with 17,897 (28 per cent) convicted while 45, 263 (72 per cent) were awaiting trial.
It is a helpful development that the Federal Government is collaborating with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to substantially tackle overpopulation in prison yards across the country. UNODC Country Representative Ms. Christina Albertin, shed some light on the partnership at a workshop on effective implementation of non-custodial measures in Nigeria, which was held in Abuja in August. According to her, the justice project aimed at supporting improvement in prison conditions across the country was being funded by the European Union and being implemented at the federal level and in nine states: Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Imo, Kastina, Lagos, Osun and Yobe.
The bottom line is that the country’s prison system urgently needs to be modernised in line with the demands of the modern age, with a view to realising the noble objective of reformation of the inmates.
