The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS)’s shoe and garment factory in Aba, Abia State and the Janguza Tannery Factory, Kano, Kano State are set to kick off after the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) handed the service a certificate of compliance. At the presentation of Full Business Case (FBC) Compliance Certificate to the Controller General of NCoS, Ja’afaru Ahmed, at the NCoS headquarters on Wednesday, the ICRC’s Director General, Chidi Izuwah said the factories will yield at least N5.089 billion investments. He said the two factories will save the huge FOREX for importation of uniforms and shoes when they become functional. Izuwah said; “the project will bring an immediate investment of N5.089 billion made up of 80% debt and 20% equity with “Zero” financial contribution by the government.
This would lead to the creation of 1,290 direct jobs, multiples of indirect jobs locally and savings on foreign exchange demand to procure uniforms abroad amongst other significant benefits to the country.” He also said the proposed PPP arrangement between NSC and Erojim Investments Limited (a local company) and its technical partner, Poly Technologies Inc., Beijing, China, is aimed at establishing a world-class factory, using the most modern technology and quality inputs to produce high quality shoe, garments and leather products to meet the demand of NCoS and other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) whose personnel wear uniforms and make use of other accessories. Engr. Izuwah listed more benefits of the factories to include: “The shoe, garment and tannery factories are the best remedy for unemployment because they are labour intensive and create jobs for the masses.” Nigerian Correctional Service begins drugs production for inmates Need for Executive Order to decongest correctional centres According to him; “Nigeria’s large population, strategic geographical location, ECOWAS membership, and government’s incentives for the shoe and garment industries, makes this investment compelling.” The NCoS Controller General said the two factories are to be built under a public-private partnership under a build, operate and transfer (BOT) arrangement. “The private investors will run the facilities for 20 years before handing them over to the service. “They [Erojim] will have to train our men within that period. “For now, the profit will be shared 70/30 in favour of Erojim,” he disclosed. However, the contract agreement is to be approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) before it can become active.
President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Nigerian Correctional Service Bill into law. Former Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang disclosed this. The Act repeals the Nigerian Prisons Service Act. The Nigerian Prisons Service will now be called the Nigerian Correctional Service. According to him, the Correctional Service comprises Custodial and Non-Custodial Service.
The presidential aide explained that the Non-Custodial Service was intended to be a place of reformation and that the person sentenced under this will not stay in custody but will have remediation. The President, he said, has also signed Federal Universities of Agriculture (Amendment No.2) Act, 2019. On the Nigerian Correctional Service Bill, 2019, Enang said: “This Act repeals the Prisons Acts and changes the name from Nigeria Prisons Service to Nigerian Correctional Service, otherwise known as ‘the Correctional Service’.
“There are, according to the Act, two main faculties of the Correctional Service, namely:
(a) Custodial Service
(b) Non-custodial Service
“The Custodial Service is to: (a) custody and take control of persons legally interned in safe, secure and humane conditions. (b) Conveying remand persons to and from courts in motorised formations;
“(c) Identifying the existence and causes of anti-social behaviours of inmates;
“(d) Conducting risk and needs assessment aimed at developing appropriate correctional treatment methods for reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration;
“(e) Implementing reformation and rehabilitation programmes to enhance the reintegration of inmates back into the society.
“(f) Initiating behaviour modification in inmates through the provision of medical, psychological, spiritual and counselling services for all offenders, including violent extremists;
“(g) Empowering inmates through the deployment of educational and vocational skills training programmes, and facilitating incentives and income generation through Custodial Centres, farms and industries;
“(h) Administering borstal and related institutions;
(I) Providing support to facilitate the speedy disposal of cases of persons awaiting trial.”
He said the Act, in Section 12 (2) (c), further states “that where an inmate sentenced to death has exhausted all legal procedures for appeal and a period of 10 years has elapsed without execution of the sentence, the Chief Judge may commute the sentence of death to life imprisonment”.
According to him, Section 12 (8) empowers the State Controller of the Service to reject more intakes of inmates, where it is apparent that the correctional centre in question is filled to capacity.
Enang said non-custodial faculty of the Correctional Service is responsible for the administration of non-custodial measures, namely: Community Service, probation, parole, restorative justice measures and such other measures as a court of competent jurisdiction may order.
He added: “Restorative justice measures approved in the Act include victim-offender mediation, family group conferencing, community mediation and other conciliatory measures as may be deemed necessary pre-trial, trial during imprisonment or even post-imprisonment stages.”
Asked the guarantee that the prisoner will get what is due to him, Enang said: “Because the law has stated that the money will be divided into three places – the person who produces will take one third, the prisoner will take one third and the last third will go to consolidated revenue fund of the federation.”
On Prisons database, he said: “The thing is when you enter; your particulars are registered in the prison system. The database cannot be faulted because it has your fingerprints and other particulars.
“The essence of the Bill is to ensure there is enough funding for the service that will take care of the welfare of the inmates and workers.
“So, any alleged corrupt practices in terms of ration will be eliminated. The Act also provides that the service retains a percentage of what they generate in addition to budgetary provision to work with, so corrupt practices will be eliminated.”
The Nigerian prisons now known as Nigerian Correctional Services are very congested, and the development has become a major concern to the prison authorities, the judiciary and the police. Over the years, inmates have outnumbered the capacity of prison cells and facilities at the prisons are being overstretched. Nigeria has 228 prisons housing 68, 259 inmates. 145 prisons are for convicts while 83 serve as satellite prison camps. There are also three Borstal institutions for juvenile offenders. The two types of convicts’ prisons operational in Nigeria are the Maximum and the Medium Security Prisons. The Satellite Prisons are built to serve as intermediate camps for the areas with courts that are far from the main prisons. But the cells in most of the prisons are old and tiny. A recent visit to prisons in Kaduna, Enugu, Oko and Kano revealed that apart from being old and small, the cells are also overcrowded. The Ikoyi Prisons in Lagos State which has capacity for 800 inmates currently has over 1,500 people awaiting trial. The Kuje Prisons in Abuja has more than 600 inmates, including 85 convicts and 585 awaiting trial.
Amnesty International, in its 2008 report, declared that Nigeria’s prisons are filled with people whose human rights are systematically violated. It stated that 65 per cent of the inmates are awaiting trial. Most of them, the organization said, have been waiting on that list for many years because they are too poor to pay lawyers. It is only one out seven of the people awaiting trial that have private legal representation, the report noted. According to an African Focus bulletin of 2008, the Nigerian Government has not implemented the recommendations of many study groups and presidential committees over the recent years. It said that few of the promises made by the Nigerian government have been carried out and this has led to the current problems being experienced in the country’s prisons. “The opening of prisons to non-governmental organizations has had a positive effect: NGOs bring food, educational materials and lawyers into the prisons. They organize religious activities, offer counseling and teach inmates. However, NGOs are not primarily responsible for the welfare of the inmates. It is time the Nigerian government faced up to its responsibilities for those in its prisons,” the bulletin stated. Studies revealed that those problems in the prison system still persist today. Some concerned Nigerians attributed the upsurge in the congestion of prisons to indiscriminate arrest of innocent citizens by the police.
This overcrowding could have negative effects on the physical and mental health of inmates. Since there are not enough resources to take care of inmates, malnutrition and poor health facilities become prevalent. This also increases the inmates’ susceptibility to assault among themselves. In fact, according to amnesty international, Nigeria’s prisons are filled with people whose human rights are systematically violated. Approximately 65 per cent of the inmates are awaiting trial most of whom have been waiting for their trial for years. Most of the people in behind bars are too poor to be able to pay lawyers, and only one in seven of those awaiting trial have private legal representation. Although governmental legal aid exists, there are too few legal aid lawyers for all the cases that require representation. Living conditions in the prisons’ system are appalling. They are damaging to the physical and mental well-being of inmates and in many cases constitute clear threats to health. Conditions such as overcrowding, poor sanitation, lack of food and medicines and denial of contact with families and friends fall short of UN standards for the treatment of prisoners. The worst conditions constitute ill-treatment. In many Nigerian prisons inmates sleep two to a bed or on the floor in filthy cells. Toilets are blocked and overflowing or simply nonexistent, and there is no running water. As a result, disease is widespread.
Most prisons have small clinics or sick bays which lack medicines, and in many prisons inmates have to pay for their own medicines. Guards frequently demand that inmates pay bribes for such “privileges” as visiting the hospital, receiving visitors, contacting their families and, in some cases, being allowed outside their cells at all. Prisoners with money may be even allowed mobile phones, whereas those without funds can be left languishing in their cells. One inmate said: “If you don’t have money, if you come to prison, you will suffer. They collect money from you. It is not right.” The Nigerian government has, on numerous occasions, stated its willingness to reform the criminal justice system, acknowledging its role in creating a situation of prolonged detention and overcrowding. Despite many Presidential Commissions and Committees recommending reform of the criminal justice system, these recommendations have not been implemented. Instead, the government has simply set up new committees and commissions to study, review and harmonize the previous recommendations. The reality remains that those in prison stand little chance of their rights being respected. Those who lack money stand even less chance.
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All too often, individuals who are not suspected of committing any crime are incarcerated in Nigeria’s prisons along with those suspected or convicted of crimes. Some were arrested in place of a family member whom the police could not locate. Others suffer from mental illness and were brought to prison to relieve their families of responsibility for their care. Most are very poor people who have no lawyer to advocate for them. The Nigerian Constitution (Section 35) guarantees the right to be brought before a court of law within a reasonable time. If there is a court of competent jurisdiction within 40km, a reasonable time is defined as one day; in all other cases “reasonable” is considered to be two days or longer, depending on the distances and circumstances. In practice, this is hardly ever accomplished. The Nigeria Police Force claim they cannot investigate a crime and interrogate suspects within such a short time, saying: “There is no case that you can crack within 24 hours unless it is a traffic offence.
It is important to note that, Amnesty International concludes that Nigeria does not take seriously its responsibility towards its citizens in prison. Recommendations made by national and international organizations have failed to lead to any action by the government. The recommendations of all governmental committees and commissions appear to be little more than words, which have left the real situation in Nigeria’s prisons unchanged. Inmates awaiting trial – especially those who cannot afford legal support – wait years for their trial to take place; the prisons remain overcrowded; prison authorities do not appear to receive the funds that have been allocated to improving conditions. Amnesty International is extremely concerned that few of the Nigerian government’s promises have been translated into action.
However, with the proposed introduction of state governments building correctional facilities in Nigeria is a welcome development; it would help in no small to decongest the overcrowded and overstretched existing facilities. It is only in this situation that the prison system will be a corrective facilities and not make a place that makes criminal more hardened and not amenable to correction, therefore, the government should expedite action on the subject matter so that, the several problems associated with the prison system in the country can be quickly taken care off.
Written by Jide Ayobolu.
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