THE RIGHTS OF AWAITING TRIAL INMATES

Extended pre-trial detention is a violation of human rights

Recent figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and other stakeholders of awaiting trial inmates in the country underscore the need to review the correctional system. The facilities that are supposedly meant to reform convicted offenders are populated largely by people who have not been found guilty of any offence. Between 64 and 68 per cent of the inmates are reportedly awaiting trial. “These figures represent people – mothers (including nursing mothers), fathers, daughters, sons, members of the community – many of which have committed minor offences,” according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in a recent report.

In a judgment delivered in May this year, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice ruled that prolonged detention of awaiting-trial inmates and overcrowding in the facilities of the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS) violates the liberty, dignity, fair hearing, presumption of innocence and trial within a reasonable time for the inmates. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has similarly continued to identify extended pre-trial detention, arbitrary arrest, torture, denial of access to lawyers and poor detention conditions as persistent human rights concerns.

What the huge gulf between the number of convicted persons and those awaiting trial clearly reveals is that the machinery of justice dispensation is faulty. Indeed, there are stories that in many of the stinking, tiny prisons across the country, some inmates have spent between 10 and 20 years in detention without trial. Prisoners and detainees, majority of whom had never been tried in court, have also reportedly been subjected to extrajudicial execution, torture, food and water shortages, and infrastructure deficiencies.

Given the current situation, it is not unlikely that many of those unfortunate Nigerians may have spent longer than the period for which they would have been jailed if their cases had been promptly disposed of. But the main concern is that there is no sign that anything would change or that efforts are being made to address this problem that has festered for decades.

While we do not advocate for a wholesale release of these detainees, it is unconscionable to keep people perpetually detained without being convicted of any crime. There is therefore an urgent need for some intervention measures which should include access to justice programme for the inmates, better endowment for prisoner education, vocational training and rehabilitation programmes. Authorities in the justice sector should also conduct prison inspections on a regular basis while there must always be a swift response to complaints. Above all, the federal government must work with the states on how to decongest the correctional centres, especially by releasing those who ordinarily should not be there.

It is noteworthy that many of the so-called correctional facilities were built during the colonial era, hence the decayed infrastructure are unable to cater for the increasing population of inmates. It is therefore no surprise that whereas the prison systems in most countries are meant to reform the inmates, our custodial centres actually harden them. Efforts at decongesting them or ameliorating the plight of awaiting trial inmates would come to naught without adequate judicial reform aimed at a complete overhauling of the country’s criminal justice system. That is the only way we can ensure that our prisons are not populated by innocent people while the real criminals roam the streets.

We reiterate our earlier call for the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, to institute the necessary reforms that will address the problem.