Justice delayed is justice denied; justice denied is injustice. This is a popular maxim. But it seems to explain the situation of awaiting trial inmates, who have to fuel prison vehicles to take them to court, writes JULIANA FRANCIS.
The Lagos State Comptroller of Prisons, Mr. Olumide Tinuoye, who disclosed this shocking information, said they died as a result of their inability to access funds for good medical treatment. It was after his disclosure that some people argued that the number of death was possibly more than the comptroller of prison disclosed.
Sicknesses, diseases and death are some of the plights of prison inmates. Tinuoye said: “Oftentimes times, prison officials use their personal money to buy drugs for inmates, while others live on the philanthropic gestures of churches and mosques which have been assisting to provide medication for the inmates.
“There are 7,714 prison inmates in Lagos State, 6,047 of them are awaiting trials, 1,390 convicted, 202 already condemned, while 75 are serving life sentences.” According to the comptroller, the 800-capacity Ikoyi Prisons presently has 2,508 inmates, 461 of who are convicted while Kirikiri Medium Prisons with a capacity of 1,700, has 2,979 inmates – 2,634 are awaiting trials, while 345 are convicted.
The most heart-rending cases are inmates who find themselves on awaiting trial. Many crazy cases are found on awaiting trial. A cart pusher, arrested by the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) Brigade in Lagos, ended up spending three years on awaiting trial. Other people, arrested for wandering, loitering or even raided by the police, end up spending more or less years, awaiting trial.
Their situation is like the one portrayed in the classical play, ‘Waiting for Godot,’ by Samuel Beckett. Many of the inmates are on transient prison, waiting for their cases to be decided in court. It’s only after their cases have been decided, they know whether they are convicted or acquitted.
For now, their lives are on ‘pause mode’. Awaiting trial inmates face hunger, sickness, diseases and death. Surprisingly, the number of those on awaiting trial keeps increasing, leading to prison congestion.
The space to sleep, stand and breath shrinks. Many of them committed ‘petty crimes,’ and as such, shouldn’t spend much time in custody but they end up spending years in remand. Many of them are victims of fighting, lovers’ squabble and police or state government agencies’ raid.
In Lagos State, people are arrested for prostitution, crossing highway, hawking, etc, and are moved to court. They are further moved to prison and remanded, if they can’t afford bail. For years now, stakeholders are arguing that some drastic measures should be taken by government to ensure that those on awaiting trial are quickly taken to court to reduce prison congestion.
It has been difficult to achieve this, thus the inmates continue to languish in prisons. One of such inmates is Rita. She was arraigned for stealing and spent three years on awaiting trial. Within those years, she got pregnant and had her baby in prison.
The story of Femi Olasupo is pathetic. He spent 11 months in prison for fighting with his client. The experience was so traumatic for him that he became a ‘born again’ Christian. He said: “A case that shouldn’t take less than a month to try, sometimes takes six months or more.
Sometimes, prison authority will say there is no vehicle to take inmates to court, so the inmates continue to stay in prisons. Sometimes, courts wouldn’t sit, delaying trial. Many people are just dumped and abandoned in prisons. Many inmates on awaiting trial don’t have families or money for lawyers.
Nobody comes for them.” Olasupo said that poor quality food was often served for those on awaiting trial. According to him, although government has made food available, prison workers take the food home. He said: “Inmates on awaiting trial die in prison because of hunger and stress.
I know a rape suspect, who is still on awaiting trial. He has been there for five years now. In my cell, somebody died. I was the cell pastor. I gave my life to Christ in prison. My cell mate got sick; he was taken to the prison clinic and died. People always die there.
When you get to prison, you’ll know that there is God and that you need him. Prison is where a rat can control an elephant. There is severe beating and slaps by inmates. They tell you that is the method of welcoming new inmates.
They call the treatment, ‘Alejo or welcome party.’” Olasupo noted that in April 2016, the Lagos State Chief Judge, Justice Oluwafunmilayo Atilade, released 113 inmates on awaiting trial. He wished such releases would be regular in other to save lives. He said:
“The judge asked inmates, who had been on awaiting trial for four to five years to go. Some of them were raided by police and committed no crime. Others were arrested for stealing and left in prison, awaiting trial. In prison, those raided by police or government agencies are more than other crimes on awaiting trial.
Families of some of those on awaiting trial, who were raided by government agencies and later placed in prison, are unaware that their loved ones are in prison. The organisation, Prison Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), try to locate some of these inmates’ families.”
According to Olasupo, inmates on awaiting trial, desperate to leave prison, contribute money for prison workers to take them to court. He said: “I paid N200 before I could be taken to court. Many inmates used to pray that a rich person, who is on awaiting trial with them, will go to court on the same day with them.
The rich inmate will pay for the vehicle and fuel; churches and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) sometime support with vehicles and fuel. Available prison vehicles are maintained by churches, NGOs and philanthropic Nigerians.
“Awaiting trial inmates live on hope. A few days to their hearing in courts, prison warders will come to alert them that there is no vehicle that will take them to court or that there is no fuel. Inmates surrender themselves to rich homosexuals in order to raise money.
Even hunger makes some inmates to surrender themselves to homosexuals.” Pastor Darlington Ajitemisan, who has been involved in prisons’ ministry for over 30 years, said food was very essential to inmates, whether on awaiting trial or otherwise.
Ajitemisan said there was a period in 2014 when 14 inmates died during a prison riot in Lagos. The riot was caused by food items donated by a church. He said: “A mechanic, Rotimi, spent 18 years on awaiting trial. He was arrested for fighting, taken to court and remanded in prison.
The incident happened in Ogun State. He had a quarrel with a customer, leading to a fight. The customer called his police friend. The policeman got other policemen, they went to Rotimi’s home and parked all his electronics and other furniture and labelled him an armed robber. “Another inmate, Kabiru, spent nine years on awaiting trial. He was held for robbery. These delays happen for many reasons.
Sometimes, it is because vehicle that is supposed to take inmates to prison has burst tyres or it has no fuel and no money to buy fuel. If these are available, then there is the problem of inmates being taken late to court. By the time the prison workers get to court with the inmates, the court would have ended sitting.”
According to Ajitemisan, except some things are checked, the number of people on awaiting trial will continue to surge. He said: “For example, in Lagos State, LASTMA, KAI, VIO, FRSC officials contribute a lot to prison surge. But KAI is the worst among the lot.
I have seen KAI arrest market women, students and just anybody for crossing the highway. I have also seen soldiers, policemen and naval men crossing these same highways and they are not arrested. Why do they target and focus on civilians?” According to some traders, after they discovered that some of their colleagues, arrested by KAI officials end up spending years in prison, they soon realised that it was better to ‘settle’ KAI. Mrs Happiness, a trader at Iyana- Ipaja, said that she was once grabbed by KAI and taken to their station at Agege. She said:
“I didn’t spend up to a day there, because I gathered all the money I had on me. My money and the ones I was keeping for other people. I paid them N10,000 before I was freed. I had to pay another N3,000 so that they would help me bring out my goods from detention.”
A roadside fruit seller, Budu, said he had been arrested by KAI before. He said: “They took me to Kirikiri Prison. I spent three days there. They took all my goods and everything. I didn’t have enough money for the bail that day, so they took me to prison. When I was able to pay N5,000, prison officials allowed me to go.
A friend of mine, also a trader, spent four months in prison.” As at February 2017, Kirikiri Prison, which has capacity for 850 inmates, had over 1,261, while the Medium Prison, which normal capacity is 800, had 2, 900.
The female prison in Lagos has 340 inmates as against its normal capacity of 150. The Lagos State Attorney General, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, who recently visited some prisons, said there was hope for the inmates as government had a committee headed by the Director, Office of the Public Defender (OPD), Mrs. Olubukola Salami, to review cases of awaiting trial.
Kazeem said: “This is to ensure that the inmates don’t continue to stay in prison unjustly or die in the process of waiting. The lack of medicine in the various prisons’ clinics has been noted. I will certainly seek the support of the state Ministry of Health for provision of drugs for the sick inmates.”
The Chief Executive Officer of Crime Victims Foundation, Mrs. Gloria Egbuji, who visited Ikoyi Prisons on April 13, is not happy. She said: “I was at the Ikoyi Prison; I saw about nine underage children, all below 16 years, arrested and dumped in prison for offenses like wandering and others. They were picked during police raids. They were all crying; they didn’t even know their offenses.
What they had in common was poverty. When they couldn’t meet their bail conditions, which ranged between N5000 and N20,000, they were dumped there. Some don’t even have home addresses. They said they live in shanties. I was in tears.
They have no one to help them, especially since their so-called crime cannot be found in the criminal codes. What can we do to ensure access to justice for these poor young ones in particular and others in general? Police should stop these senseless arrests of innocent children.”
While lampooning police for forcing the boys to say they were 18, when they are less, Egbuji suggested that some of the money recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the EFCC, should be used to assist some inmates on awaiting trial. She said:
“Last year, we were at the Lagos prison, and we actually saw many under-aged people. When I was in Enugu, I saw children, who stole N500 from their teachers, some stole chickens and they were locked up in prison.
There was a time in Enugu, that the chief judge released 80 underaged inmates. The last time I went to Ikoyi Prison, I saw underage inmates; their ages were 15 and 16 years. They said police told them to say they were 18 years. Some of them don’t know why they are in prison.
They said police raided and parked them into a truck.” Egbuji explained that she made an effort to go looking for some of the underage inmates’ parents. A parent she met, told her that the family had been searching for the boy everywhere, including going to mortuary.
She said: “One of them told me that they live in Pako, which doesn’t have an address. He said that once I get to the area, I should ask of Mama Victor or Mama Groundnut. They don’t even have phone numbers of anyone we could contact. Some of them didn’t commit any offence.
A prison warder, who felt sorry for them, showed what they were charged for. I’ll try and visit courts to see if I can get the proof or evidence for all of them. “Even when I went to Medium Prison, Kirikiri, for female; I saw two pregnant women.
I assisted the two of them. They got bailed. I asked who got them pregnant, they couldn’t explain. These pregnant ladies were raided by the police. A lot of inmates shouldn’t be there. Like wandering is not an offence. If a crime is committed, police move round, picking young people.
They dump them in prisons.” Egbuji urged people involved in prison ministry and stakeholders to visit prisons that they would, “see the age of inmates ranging between 14 and 16 years.” Defending prison for accommodating underage inmates, Egbuji said prison couldn’t refuse to accept inmates sent to them from courts. She said: “Prison is like a dumping ground. When police or any other agencies bring inmates, they just give prison workers papers.
The prison worker signs to show the number of people he or she received. Remember that most of these underage inmates told me that they were told to lie about their ages by the police. But when you look at them, you’ll know they are underage.
In fact, one of them was crying. I also shed tears. He was the person that told me that people call his mother Mama Groundnut. Police arrested him for wandering. I met two young boys; 13 and 15 years in Badagry Prison. They had been there for six months.
They were accused of stealing N50,000. They came from village to learn a trade. Their parents would be thinking they were learning their trade. I took up their case. The magistrate granted them unconditional bail. It’s not today I started going to the prisons, but there’s never a day I go there that I don’t see underage inmates.”
Egbuji said that her passion and her foundation were to help young people. She recollected another 14 years old she saw in prison. The boy used to carry loads for people. When she saw him, he had a swollen head caused by severe beating.
He was arrested during a police raid. He told Egbuji that he had saved N15,000 from his menial work. While raiding, police tried to collect the N15,000 from him; he refused, leading to the beating. She added: “I spent over N4,500 buying medicine for him in the prison.
I have the receipts. It is touching; I have kids and I cannot imagine what those kids in prison are going through. “Let’s treat children as children. We have the Child Rights Act. People know that children under 18 are not to be treated the same way as criminals who are adults.
There are juvenile places where you can send young people to be corrected. “If we put a child in prison now, he doesn’t even know why he is there. Some of them have diseases, but prison hospital doesn’t have drugs. Imagine Ikoyi Prison with a built in capacity for 800, now, has 2013.
It has about 1,300 inmates. More than 1/3 of them are awaiting trial, with the common denominator being poverty. So efforts should be on how to get access to justice for the poor.”A lawyer and a human rights activist, Nathaniel Ngwu, working with Legal Resources Consortium, also spoke on awaiting trial, leading to prison congestion.
He said: “In 2008, we discovered there is an absolute lack of connectivity between the stakeholders, the Ministry of Justice, whether federal or state, the police and the prisons. The issues of prisons belonging to the Federal Government, not my state is contributing to the problem we have in Nigerian prisons.
“There should be a synergy among police, Ministry of Justice and prisons. There was a time we discovered that some inmates on awaiting trial had spent over 13 years in prison. Why? We discovered that files of some of them were abandoned in court and the police stations and they have not been transferred to the DPP for legal advice.
If there is synergy, there would be speedy trial. If that is done, the person’s fate is determined on time. Prisons are meant for convicts, not for awaiting trial inmates.” Ngwu noted that another reason for congestion was the increase in population of Nigerians.
He urged government to consider building more prison facilities to reduce congestion. According to him, Lagos State ought to have more than five prisons because its population is huge. Reacting to allegations that magistrates and judges contribute to prison congestion and long stay in prison by inmates, Ngwu said magistrates or judges usually act on the law and the fact before them.
He said that the police should file their cases properly, while presenting incriminating evidence. The Executive Secretary of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof Bem Angwe, accompanied by the United Nations adviser on human rights issues, Mr. Martins Ejidike, the Secretary of the National Anti-Torture Committee, Mr. Olawale Fapohunda, and representatives of Criminal Justice Network of Nigerian, among others, visited Nigerian prisons in Lagos on October 11, 2016 to determine the conditions of prisons and identify areas of intervention for the inmates.
The team took off from Ikoyi Prison where it was stunned over the number of inmates in less capacity cells. The total number of inmates was 2361, convicted inmates (317), awaiting trial inmates (2044), while prison capacity is 800.
The deputy controller of prisons, who conducted the team round the facility, listed some of the challenges in prison as prolonged adjournment of cases, prison’s congestion, over stretching of facilities, low capacity generator, lack of floor tiles in the cells, dilapidated sewage safety tank, lack of water supply, shortage of prison uniforms and damage roof.
The team discovered 20 inmates in one of the cells. Some of the have stayed in prison from 11 months to four years. While one of them said he had been there awaiting trial for four years. Another said his trial had been concluded but judgement had not been delivered for over three years.
The team went to another cell containing 65 awaiting trial inmates and discovered that the majority of them were all awaiting DPP’s legal advice for over two to five years. Also in the cell were inmates who had spent over five years in prison while their terms of imprisonment for their offences were only two years. Angwe affirmed that the team was there to kick-start the drive against dumping of suspects in prisons without proper procedure being followed.
He frowned at the attitude of police officers, who without proper investigations, drag suspects to court and have them remanded in prisons. These suspects will be left in the hands of the courts and prisons, who will no longer be attended to after first to third time in court.
Angwe disclosed that the commission had prosecuted some cases of the prolonged awaiting trial inmates and courts had awarded damages to the tune of N2 million and above in respect of the cases. When the team proceeded to Kirikiri Prison, the members were told that the inmates were in dire need of legal assistance.
The deputy controller of Kirikiri Prison said that the inmates were always asking him to intervene in their cases, particularly those whose cases were stalled in courts and prolonged awaiting trial. At the prison’s clinic, the doctor in charge led the team through the wards. But according to him, general hospitals usually refuse to admit or treat prison inmates.
The team met five inmates in the clinic. Among them was Muhammed Rabiu, who had been on hospital admission since 2014. Rabiu had multiple fractures and orthopaedic implant which had become infected and oozing pus. The doctor referred Rabiu to the Orthopaedic Hospital but he was rejected without reason. Another patient at the clinic was John Ottah, a 62 year-old-man with High Blood Pressure, stroke (left hemiplegia) and severe physical disability.
There were others with different illnesses. There was also an inmate with chickenpox, which made Angwe to inquire how they were being treated to prevent spread to other inmates. The deputy controller responded that the inmates were detained in a classified segment in line with their specific health conditions.
But the problem with that classification is that they do not have enough space. When contacted, the spokesman for the Nigerian Prisons Services, Francis Enobore, said prison was basically reformatory. He said:
“The prison is primarily meant to reform and rehabilitate offenders but the problem of congestion of prisons has continued to be the bane of these objectives. This is almost exclusive to the pre-trial detainees, a population that consists largely of those charged with capital offences.
It is also limited to prisons located in urban centres.” Enobore explained that as at May 3, 2017, the inmate population stood at 70,766 with 48,094 awaiting trial and convicts – 22, 672. Enobore also offered reasons for prison congestion. He said:
“Trial process in court is very slow and most state governments are yet to implement the recently passed Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015 that would have ensured speedy trial process. The Act also provides for use of non-custodial sentencing options which would have reduced influx of persons into the prison.
“Also, inadequate legal representation and inadequate pro bono services for indigent prisoners contribute to prison congestion. There is also frequent adjournment of cases. Jail delivery exercise is not frequently carried out. There is also inadequate of court duty vehicles.
The present administration has, however, taken a bold step to address the problem by procuring over 300 operational vehicles awaiting distribution to prisons. “Most of the prison buildings are old and not adequate to accommodate the increasing number of prisoners.
Stigmatisation of former convicts pushes them back to crime and they soon get arrested and are returned to the prison.” Arguing that there are solutions for prison congestion, Enobore said that judges and magistrates should be encouraged to carry out speedy disposition of cases. He added:
“Relocating overcrowded prisons in urban centres that have no space for expansion. Supporting after care services of the NPS in order to enhance the process of re-integration of former convicts with minimal chances of stigmatisation. Compelling state governments to implement the ACJA 2015; families and communities should be more receptive to former prisoners can also check congestions.
“Security agencies that arrest offenders can help in decongesting the prison by making arrangements for quick trial process. I’m not aware of any inmate paying money to anyone in order to be taken to court.
Irrespective of the number of inmates we have in custody, the Federal Government provides food for them. The prison has three borstal institutions located in Kaduna, Ilorin where we keep juveniles below criminal liability age of 18 who are in conflict with the law. There are no underage inmates in prisons.”https://newtelegraphonline.com/2017/06/abandoned-forgotten-story-awaiting-trial-inmates/
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