“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”- Nelson Mandela
There is no gainsaying that the Prisons in Nigeria are over-populated, with few or no facilities at all for the teeming inmates. And if the words of Mandela are anything to go by, one could without fear say Nigeria is one big hell considering that the two hundred and thirty five prison facilities in Nigeria can be described as hell-on-earth. Maybe I really should not be saying this but anytime I hear of Jail breaks in Nigeria, a part of me is happy. The conditions those people live are terrible to say the least! You need to visit one to understand. Is it the non-existing toilets, lack of food and medications or lack of space for the prisoners to even sleep that we want to mention?
Before you say prisoners are actually criminals and do not deserve any good condition, I must immediately remind you that these Prisons are not congested by only people who have been pronounced guilty by the courts, they are filled with people who are supposed to be presumed innocent until it is held otherwise by the courts; some of these people stay in prison for as much as eleven years!
According to one of Amnesty International’s Africa Focus Bulletins which released a report on Nigerian Prisons in 2008. It said: “Nigerian Prisons are filled with people whose human rights are systematically violated. Approximately 65 percent of the inmates are awaiting trial, most of who have been waiting for the trial for years”
The Daily Watch of 6th May 2013 gave a report of the statistics of inmates at the Kirikiri Medium Prisons, Lagos as follows:
Female Prison: Total number of inmates: 201; Convicted inmates: 36; Awaiting Trial Inmates: 167
Male Prison: Total number of inmates: 2496: Convicted inmates:152; Awaiting Trial Inmates: 2344
So, you see? It is people that are still presumed innocent that own prisons now. Awaiting trial inmates are in prison for a lot of reasons which include but not limited to: standing trial for non-bailable offences which leaves the courts with no option but to keep the accused person in prison custody, standing trial for bailable offences which the accused person has actually been granted bail but with no reasonable surety(ies) forthcoming for the bail to be perfected, accused persons awaiting Legal Advice from the Ministry of Justice for his matter to proceed (the advice could be awaited for several years)
Now, let us focus to the police. Let us face it, men of the Nigerian Police could be very tactless and unprofessional and in truth, the powers of the Nigerian Police is outright excessive! These powers contribute in no small measure to the embarrassingly large number of souls in the Prisons. A look at the sections of the Police Act that give powers to the Police shows powers like “power to prosecute before any Court (Section 23 of the Act), powers to arrest with or without warrant (Section 24), power to arrest anyone the Policeman reasonably “suspects” of having committed an offence as well as powers to arrest anyone a Policeman suspects of having no source of livelihood.
I am almost as sure that the drafters of the Police Act did not contemplate that the Force would be burdened with so much unprofessionalism and corruption today that the powers will now aid in their unruliness. A policeman friend once told me that policemen get power crazy anytime they have the opportunity to go through the Police Act and read about their powers. He admitted that the powers were too much. I dare to say that it is not in a nation as ours that the Police should get unlimited powers as this. It could be more useful in saner climes.
“Sir, we know you have connections with the Government and the Police. Please, tell the Police to stop bringing innocent persons to the Prison”
These were the exact words of a prisoner in Ado-Ekiti Prisons while I was there with a Catholic Committee on Prison solidarity and reforms in November 2013. The Prisoner spoke the simple truth; the minds of many other Prisoners. He continued “Sir, many of the inmates you see here are innocent; they just land here when they get into the wrong books of some Policemen, or when they cannot settle them”
The nature of my work takes me to the Prisons many times and I have had the opportunity to see and hear first hand a lot of the evils the Police perpetrates in the society. Let me give you an illustration of how the Police does some of these things in real life. In practice, some men of the Nigerian Police because of the unreserved power to arrest, arrest just anybody, because of the corruption in the system, they look for one offence to say the “suspect” has committed and demand for some sum if he does not want to be charged. If the “suspect” is unyielding, they charge him to court because they have the powers to prosecute and in some instances, depending on how rude the Policeman perceives the “suspect”, they charge him for very grave offences which they know the court would not ordinarily grant bails for, and most of the times, they charge in courts that do not have the jurisdiction to hear such grave offence (this is called: “holding charge” in practice). They know that because the court does not have the jurisdiction to try this offence, it will normally order the accused person to be remanded in Prison custody and the accused person’s file be sent to the Ministry of Justice for proper “Legal Advice” to be issued. The Policeman is aware that before all of this process materializes, and he is eventually called upon to give evidence supporting his claim (if at all that ever happens) the innocent man would have spent sometimes in the Prisons. He capitalizes on the defect in the Nigerian Criminal Justice System. And I ask: what is his joy in all these? It is worse if the accused person does not have any family member that cares for him not to talk of a Counsel. His case file could be lost forever and he abandoned in Prison.
Apart from the instance given above, there are more. At times when there are actually reports of crimes and reported suspects are arrested; the Policemen hardly ever really investigate anything. They just charge to court not minding whether the suspect was lied against. This is why I usually laugh when I hear people call some Policemen “Investigating Police Officers” (IPO) all around. They actually investigate nothing. There are also those that are in Prison because the Police arrested and charged them for the offence of a friend or family member when the friend/family member could not be found. Another category is that of people that were arrested to replace an unfound accused person or those that have bribed there ways out. There are many categories like that that one can go on and on.
This last week, I was at Olokuta Medium Prison in Akure, Ondo State (another congested Prison with an original capacity of 160 but with inmates never less than 600 at a time) to interview some inmates for possible legal assistance and medical attention and also for the purpose of this article. Out of about seven that I spoke with, about four of the claimed they were there on the framing of some men of the Nigerian Police Force. Agreed, some prisoners lie but these “lies” are told severally that we do not have any choice than to believe them as the truth. Even Prison officials know of some of these evils and do not like the Police for it. I am sure you also have one thing or two to say on how the Police contributes to the never ending swell in population in the nation’s Prisons. I want you to read excerpts from the interviews:
Monday Achi: He told m e his wife stole a sum of N87, 000 from her boss and fled and when the wife was not found, he was arrested and charged instead.
Usman Abubakar: He was taken to the Prison in 2009 when he was a herdsman. He said the Police Van just parked beside him one day and he was asked to enter. He said when they got to the Police station, they started demanding for money if he wanted to be released. He said some other people that were so arrested were released after parted with some cash but he could not. So, he was charged with some people “I had never seen before” for armed robbery and so he had been in Prison since then.
Monday Ogungbure: This young man had a quarrel with someone who would not pay the debt he owed him and he seized his motorcycle. When the latter reported at the Police station, the Policeman took sides with him because according to Ogungbure, they were from the same town. The Policeman then decided to punish him more than he did punish the debtor and he charged him for robbery which has made him be in prison since 2011 awaiting trial.
If I ever get the opportunity to propose solutions to these anomalies, I would present the following:
•Let the powers of the Police be reduced or at the worse, let there be a body that will from time to time check the excesses of men of the Police Force. Lord Acton it was that said “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”
•The qualification for admission into the Police Force should be raised a bit to Ordinary National diploma for example and only the Lawyers amongst them should have the powers and duties of prosecution and also time to time trainings should be organized for the men of the Force so as to better build their skills
•Police heads of each Police station in the nation should be made strictly responsible for the misdeeds of their men. This way, the bosses will become more interested in the acts of the juniors and this makes for some accountability
•States in the Federation should make laws to outrightly ban the concept of “holding charge”. Accused persons should be taken to the courts that can try them directly and not take them where they will be kept endlessly in the Prisons.
In conclusion I should mention that my stand is not that of hatred for the Nigerian Police Force, it is just a call for what is right and for the dignity of the human person. I am also not saying that the Police bear all the blame for prison congestion, it is just that the focus here is on them. Let the Prisons be for people who are meant to be there only.
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