States should take the lead in Prison decongestion – Lawyer

The issue of Prison decongestion in Nigeria is within the purview of the States and needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves.

Legal Practitioner, Bayo Akinlade, a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu branch disclosed this while speaking on TVC News.

Mr Akinlade who is also the convener of the Duty’s Solicitors Network, said the majority of inmates in Prison or Custodial Centres across the Country are those on offences committed against the States.

He added that unless a decision is made to have States Prisons or Custodial Centres different from Federal everything is the prerogative of the States.

He also called for more attention to be paid the crimes committed by inmates wondering how an inmate can be in Custody for 7 years for an offence that carries a jail sentence of 3 years.

He made allusion to the case of film maker, Seun Egbegbe, who has been in custody for longer than the prison sentence that was handed to him for his Crimes.

He said this is another instance of States not doing due diligence on issues like that.

He however commended the Lagos State Government for its various initiative on access to Justice for citizens.

He called for more to be done on this issue.

He also said States Committees on the Prerogative of Mercy must meet more regularly to free prisoners as against the current system of once every 6 months or a year.

He said the move by the minister of Interior on the issue of Prison decongestion though commendable will not make any major difference asking what happens after the 30% decongestion.

 

Read more Below….

“The way to decongest the Prisons and Custodial Centres is within the purview of state government. It doesn’t really add up because if you’re talking about congestion because most of the inmates are there because of state crimes committed within the state and it really makes no sense, except you want to have state prisons and distinguish between federal prisons and state prisons”.

“So then you have to consider who are the agencies that make this arrest before they go to court, which of course are also state courts. It’s a federal agency police. And we don’t have any state police”.

“So what the minister was saying actually I wouldn’t understand how distinguishing between crimes committed by people under state jurisdiction and federal has anything to do with decongestion”.

“But the benefit is also saying that there are quite a number of inmates who have no reason to remain in custody. In particular, inmate was tried, a judgment order was given recently for someone, I think for seven years thereabout and found that he had already stayed beyond that in prisons”.

“There is what they call the prerogative of mercy. There is perhaps what they can do to ensure that people who have stayed way beyond the crimes they’ve committed and let go. Well, this exercise takes place in every state. You have the State committee on the prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Chief Judge looking into this”.

“You also have respective Ministry of justice also looking into this. And above all, you still have the chief judges of the state going ceremoniously into the Nigerian prison to release inmates”.
“These are usually annual events or once in six months. What we have on record is that the Nigerian police and the army and other enforcement agencies arresting people every day. Every day people have been arranged in courts and every day they are going into prison custody. So if you have a program that only occurs once in a year or once in six months, I don’t think that’s enough”.

“Any of those programs can tackle what the minister wants to deal with. And above all, even if we do this exercise and we reduce by 30% what happens the day after, unless we have some serious mechanisms in place to curtail the abuse of power by the police in arresting”.

“Except you have other initiatives also in place. Some of them are in Lagos already. For instance, the DPP filtering system where people cannot just go and be arraigned by magistrate without going through the DPP filtering system to make sure that those crimes allegedly committed are valid crimes and they have enough evidence to prosecute”.

“So we have a long way to go. Indeed, it would seem that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system if some 70% of our inmates are awaiting trial, many of them who are first or minor offenders”.

“Usually what we do is punitive rather than corrective. There’s community service where many offenders can be subjected to. How involved do you see the state government in this process? Well, I can speak for the Lagos state government”.

“There are quite a few innovations here in Lagos, for instance, you have the reservative cost system where the alleged perpetrator can’t seek some mediation. There’s also non-profitial sentencing also in place in labor where small petty crimes once pleaded guilty, you can do some community service and those initiatives in Lagos”.

“And of course DPP floating system which attempts to just not even allow some cases alleged offenses get into the criminal justice system to the court. So we need actually a rough kind of intervention which includes technology also that is being done also in Lagos where they have a crime directory”.

“So unless you have this in place where people data have been collected at the police station level and at the court level, we are supposed to have a situation where the prisons and the correction Centres need to be congested and let me just go further”.

“It’s not that they are congested per se. The congestion can be dealt with by having additional correctional. What we have even in Lagos is what was built in the maybe in the 70s. What we need is more correction of us. For instance, in Lagos. Lagos does not have more than maybe 15,000 inmates, whether they have been fully prosecuted or are we to try”.

The issue of Prison decongestion in Nigeria is within the purview of the States and needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves.

Legal Practitioner, Bayo Akinlade, a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu branch disclosed this while speaking on TVC News.

Mr Akinlade who is also the convener of the Duty’s Solicitors Network, said the majority of inmates in Prison or Custodial Centres across the Country are those on offences committed against the States.

He added that unless a decision is made to have States Prisons or Custodial Centres different from Federal everything is the prerogative of the States.

He also called for more attention to be paid the crimes committed by inmates wondering how an inmate can be in Custody for 7 years for an offence that carries a jail sentence of 3 years.

He made allusion to the case of film maker, Seun Egbegbe, who has been in custody for longer than the prison sentence that was handed to him for his Crimes.

He said this is another instance of States not doing due diligence on issues like that.

He however commended the Lagos State Government for its various initiative on access to Justice for citizens.

He called for more to be done on this issue.

He also said States Committees on the Prerogative of Mercy must meet more regularly to free prisoners as against the current system of once every 6 months or a year.

He said the move by the minister of Interior on the issue of Prison decongestion though commendable will not make any major difference asking what happens after the 30% decongestion.

 

Read more Below….

“The way to decongest the Prisons and Custodial Centres is within the purview of state government. It doesn’t really add up because if you’re talking about congestion because most of the inmates are there because of state crimes committed within the state and it really makes no sense, except you want to have state prisons and distinguish between federal prisons and state prisons”.

“So then you have to consider who are the agencies that make this arrest before they go to court, which of course are also state courts. It’s a federal agency police. And we don’t have any state police”.

“So what the minister was saying actually I wouldn’t understand how distinguishing between crimes committed by people under state jurisdiction and federal has anything to do with decongestion”.

“But the benefit is also saying that there are quite a number of inmates who have no reason to remain in custody. In particular, inmate was tried, a judgment order was given recently for someone, I think for seven years thereabout and found that he had already stayed beyond that in prisons”.

“There is what they call the prerogative of mercy. There is perhaps what they can do to ensure that people who have stayed way beyond the crimes they’ve committed and let go. Well, this exercise takes place in every state. You have the State committee on the prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Chief Judge looking into this”.

“You also have respective Ministry of justice also looking into this. And above all, you still have the chief judges of the state going ceremoniously into the Nigerian prison to release inmates”.
“These are usually annual events or once in six months. What we have on record is that the Nigerian police and the army and other enforcement agencies arresting people every day. Every day people have been arranged in courts and every day they are going into prison custody. So if you have a program that only occurs once in a year or once in six months, I don’t think that’s enough”.

“Any of those programs can tackle what the minister wants to deal with. And above all, even if we do this exercise and we reduce by 30% what happens the day after, unless we have some serious mechanisms in place to curtail the abuse of power by the police in arresting”.

“Except you have other initiatives also in place. Some of them are in Lagos already. For instance, the DPP filtering system where people cannot just go and be arraigned by magistrate without going through the DPP filtering system to make sure that those crimes allegedly committed are valid crimes and they have enough evidence to prosecute”.

“So we have a long way to go. Indeed, it would seem that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system if some 70% of our inmates are awaiting trial, many of them who are first or minor offenders”.

“Usually what we do is punitive rather than corrective. There’s community service where many offenders can be subjected to. How involved do you see the state government in this process? Well, I can speak for the Lagos state government”.

“There are quite a few innovations here in Lagos, for instance, you have the reservative cost system where the alleged perpetrator can’t seek some mediation. There’s also non-profitial sentencing also in place in labor where small petty crimes once pleaded guilty, you can do some community service and those initiatives in Lagos”.

“And of course DPP floating system which attempts to just not even allow some cases alleged offenses get into the criminal justice system to the court. So we need actually a rough kind of intervention which includes technology also that is being done also in Lagos where they have a crime directory”.

“So unless you have this in place where people data have been collected at the police station level and at the court level, we are supposed to have a situation where the prisons and the correction Centres need to be congested and let me just go further”.

“It’s not that they are congested per se. The congestion can be dealt with by having additional correctional. What we have even in Lagos is what was built in the maybe in the 70s. What we need is more correction of us. For instance, in Lagos. Lagos does not have more than maybe 15,000 inmates, whether they have been fully prosecuted or are we to try”.

The issue of Prison decongestion in Nigeria is within the purview of the States and needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves.

Legal Practitioner, Bayo Akinlade, a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu branch disclosed this while speaking on TVC News.

Mr Akinlade who is also the convener of the Duty’s Solicitors Network, said the majority of inmates in Prison or Custodial Centres across the Country are those on offences committed against the States.

He added that unless a decision is made to have States Prisons or Custodial Centres different from Federal everything is the prerogative of the States.

He also called for more attention to be paid the crimes committed by inmates wondering how an inmate can be in Custody for 7 years for an offence that carries a jail sentence of 3 years.

He made allusion to the case of film maker, Seun Egbegbe, who has been in custody for longer than the prison sentence that was handed to him for his Crimes.

He said this is another instance of States not doing due diligence on issues like that.

He however commended the Lagos State Government for its various initiative on access to Justice for citizens.

He called for more to be done on this issue.

He also said States Committees on the Prerogative of Mercy must meet more regularly to free prisoners as against the current system of once every 6 months or a year.

He said the move by the minister of Interior on the issue of Prison decongestion though commendable will not make any major difference asking what happens after the 30% decongestion.

 

Read more Below….

“The way to decongest the Prisons and Custodial Centres is within the purview of state government. It doesn’t really add up because if you’re talking about congestion because most of the inmates are there because of state crimes committed within the state and it really makes no sense, except you want to have state prisons and distinguish between federal prisons and state prisons”.

“So then you have to consider who are the agencies that make this arrest before they go to court, which of course are also state courts. It’s a federal agency police. And we don’t have any state police”.

“So what the minister was saying actually I wouldn’t understand how distinguishing between crimes committed by people under state jurisdiction and federal has anything to do with decongestion”.

“But the benefit is also saying that there are quite a number of inmates who have no reason to remain in custody. In particular, inmate was tried, a judgment order was given recently for someone, I think for seven years thereabout and found that he had already stayed beyond that in prisons”.

“There is what they call the prerogative of mercy. There is perhaps what they can do to ensure that people who have stayed way beyond the crimes they’ve committed and let go. Well, this exercise takes place in every state. You have the State committee on the prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Chief Judge looking into this”.

“You also have respective Ministry of justice also looking into this. And above all, you still have the chief judges of the state going ceremoniously into the Nigerian prison to release inmates”.
“These are usually annual events or once in six months. What we have on record is that the Nigerian police and the army and other enforcement agencies arresting people every day. Every day people have been arranged in courts and every day they are going into prison custody. So if you have a program that only occurs once in a year or once in six months, I don’t think that’s enough”.

“Any of those programs can tackle what the minister wants to deal with. And above all, even if we do this exercise and we reduce by 30% what happens the day after, unless we have some serious mechanisms in place to curtail the abuse of power by the police in arresting”.

“Except you have other initiatives also in place. Some of them are in Lagos already. For instance, the DPP filtering system where people cannot just go and be arraigned by magistrate without going through the DPP filtering system to make sure that those crimes allegedly committed are valid crimes and they have enough evidence to prosecute”.

“So we have a long way to go. Indeed, it would seem that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system if some 70% of our inmates are awaiting trial, many of them who are first or minor offenders”.

“Usually what we do is punitive rather than corrective. There’s community service where many offenders can be subjected to. How involved do you see the state government in this process? Well, I can speak for the Lagos state government”.

“There are quite a few innovations here in Lagos, for instance, you have the reservative cost system where the alleged perpetrator can’t seek some mediation. There’s also non-profitial sentencing also in place in labor where small petty crimes once pleaded guilty, you can do some community service and those initiatives in Lagos”.

“And of course DPP floating system which attempts to just not even allow some cases alleged offenses get into the criminal justice system to the court. So we need actually a rough kind of intervention which includes technology also that is being done also in Lagos where they have a crime directory”.

“So unless you have this in place where people data have been collected at the police station level and at the court level, we are supposed to have a situation where the prisons and the correction Centres need to be congested and let me just go further”.

“It’s not that they are congested per se. The congestion can be dealt with by having additional correctional. What we have even in Lagos is what was built in the maybe in the 70s. What we need is more correction of us. For instance, in Lagos. Lagos does not have more than maybe 15,000 inmates, whether they have been fully prosecuted or are we to try”.

The issue of Prison decongestion in Nigeria is within the purview of the States and needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves.

Legal Practitioner, Bayo Akinlade, a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu branch disclosed this while speaking on TVC News.

Mr Akinlade who is also the convener of the Duty’s Solicitors Network, said the majority of inmates in Prison or Custodial Centres across the Country are those on offences committed against the States.

He added that unless a decision is made to have States Prisons or Custodial Centres different from Federal everything is the prerogative of the States.

He also called for more attention to be paid the crimes committed by inmates wondering how an inmate can be in Custody for 7 years for an offence that carries a jail sentence of 3 years.

He made allusion to the case of film maker, Seun Egbegbe, who has been in custody for longer than the prison sentence that was handed to him for his Crimes.

He said this is another instance of States not doing due diligence on issues like that.

He however commended the Lagos State Government for its various initiative on access to Justice for citizens.

He called for more to be done on this issue.

He also said States Committees on the Prerogative of Mercy must meet more regularly to free prisoners as against the current system of once every 6 months or a year.

He said the move by the minister of Interior on the issue of Prison decongestion though commendable will not make any major difference asking what happens after the 30% decongestion.

 

Read more Below….

“The way to decongest the Prisons and Custodial Centres is within the purview of state government. It doesn’t really add up because if you’re talking about congestion because most of the inmates are there because of state crimes committed within the state and it really makes no sense, except you want to have state prisons and distinguish between federal prisons and state prisons”.

“So then you have to consider who are the agencies that make this arrest before they go to court, which of course are also state courts. It’s a federal agency police. And we don’t have any state police”.

“So what the minister was saying actually I wouldn’t understand how distinguishing between crimes committed by people under state jurisdiction and federal has anything to do with decongestion”.

“But the benefit is also saying that there are quite a number of inmates who have no reason to remain in custody. In particular, inmate was tried, a judgment order was given recently for someone, I think for seven years thereabout and found that he had already stayed beyond that in prisons”.

“There is what they call the prerogative of mercy. There is perhaps what they can do to ensure that people who have stayed way beyond the crimes they’ve committed and let go. Well, this exercise takes place in every state. You have the State committee on the prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Chief Judge looking into this”.

“You also have respective Ministry of justice also looking into this. And above all, you still have the chief judges of the state going ceremoniously into the Nigerian prison to release inmates”.
“These are usually annual events or once in six months. What we have on record is that the Nigerian police and the army and other enforcement agencies arresting people every day. Every day people have been arranged in courts and every day they are going into prison custody. So if you have a program that only occurs once in a year or once in six months, I don’t think that’s enough”.

“Any of those programs can tackle what the minister wants to deal with. And above all, even if we do this exercise and we reduce by 30% what happens the day after, unless we have some serious mechanisms in place to curtail the abuse of power by the police in arresting”.

“Except you have other initiatives also in place. Some of them are in Lagos already. For instance, the DPP filtering system where people cannot just go and be arraigned by magistrate without going through the DPP filtering system to make sure that those crimes allegedly committed are valid crimes and they have enough evidence to prosecute”.

“So we have a long way to go. Indeed, it would seem that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system if some 70% of our inmates are awaiting trial, many of them who are first or minor offenders”.

“Usually what we do is punitive rather than corrective. There’s community service where many offenders can be subjected to. How involved do you see the state government in this process? Well, I can speak for the Lagos state government”.

“There are quite a few innovations here in Lagos, for instance, you have the reservative cost system where the alleged perpetrator can’t seek some mediation. There’s also non-profitial sentencing also in place in labor where small petty crimes once pleaded guilty, you can do some community service and those initiatives in Lagos”.

“And of course DPP floating system which attempts to just not even allow some cases alleged offenses get into the criminal justice system to the court. So we need actually a rough kind of intervention which includes technology also that is being done also in Lagos where they have a crime directory”.

“So unless you have this in place where people data have been collected at the police station level and at the court level, we are supposed to have a situation where the prisons and the correction Centres need to be congested and let me just go further”.

“It’s not that they are congested per se. The congestion can be dealt with by having additional correctional. What we have even in Lagos is what was built in the maybe in the 70s. What we need is more correction of us. For instance, in Lagos. Lagos does not have more than maybe 15,000 inmates, whether they have been fully prosecuted or are we to try”.

The issue of Prison decongestion in Nigeria is within the purview of the States and needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves.

Legal Practitioner, Bayo Akinlade, a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu branch disclosed this while speaking on TVC News.

Mr Akinlade who is also the convener of the Duty’s Solicitors Network, said the majority of inmates in Prison or Custodial Centres across the Country are those on offences committed against the States.

He added that unless a decision is made to have States Prisons or Custodial Centres different from Federal everything is the prerogative of the States.

He also called for more attention to be paid the crimes committed by inmates wondering how an inmate can be in Custody for 7 years for an offence that carries a jail sentence of 3 years.

He made allusion to the case of film maker, Seun Egbegbe, who has been in custody for longer than the prison sentence that was handed to him for his Crimes.

He said this is another instance of States not doing due diligence on issues like that.

He however commended the Lagos State Government for its various initiative on access to Justice for citizens.

He called for more to be done on this issue.

He also said States Committees on the Prerogative of Mercy must meet more regularly to free prisoners as against the current system of once every 6 months or a year.

He said the move by the minister of Interior on the issue of Prison decongestion though commendable will not make any major difference asking what happens after the 30% decongestion.

 

Read more Below….

“The way to decongest the Prisons and Custodial Centres is within the purview of state government. It doesn’t really add up because if you’re talking about congestion because most of the inmates are there because of state crimes committed within the state and it really makes no sense, except you want to have state prisons and distinguish between federal prisons and state prisons”.

“So then you have to consider who are the agencies that make this arrest before they go to court, which of course are also state courts. It’s a federal agency police. And we don’t have any state police”.

“So what the minister was saying actually I wouldn’t understand how distinguishing between crimes committed by people under state jurisdiction and federal has anything to do with decongestion”.

“But the benefit is also saying that there are quite a number of inmates who have no reason to remain in custody. In particular, inmate was tried, a judgment order was given recently for someone, I think for seven years thereabout and found that he had already stayed beyond that in prisons”.

“There is what they call the prerogative of mercy. There is perhaps what they can do to ensure that people who have stayed way beyond the crimes they’ve committed and let go. Well, this exercise takes place in every state. You have the State committee on the prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Chief Judge looking into this”.

“You also have respective Ministry of justice also looking into this. And above all, you still have the chief judges of the state going ceremoniously into the Nigerian prison to release inmates”.
“These are usually annual events or once in six months. What we have on record is that the Nigerian police and the army and other enforcement agencies arresting people every day. Every day people have been arranged in courts and every day they are going into prison custody. So if you have a program that only occurs once in a year or once in six months, I don’t think that’s enough”.

“Any of those programs can tackle what the minister wants to deal with. And above all, even if we do this exercise and we reduce by 30% what happens the day after, unless we have some serious mechanisms in place to curtail the abuse of power by the police in arresting”.

“Except you have other initiatives also in place. Some of them are in Lagos already. For instance, the DPP filtering system where people cannot just go and be arraigned by magistrate without going through the DPP filtering system to make sure that those crimes allegedly committed are valid crimes and they have enough evidence to prosecute”.

“So we have a long way to go. Indeed, it would seem that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system if some 70% of our inmates are awaiting trial, many of them who are first or minor offenders”.

“Usually what we do is punitive rather than corrective. There’s community service where many offenders can be subjected to. How involved do you see the state government in this process? Well, I can speak for the Lagos state government”.

“There are quite a few innovations here in Lagos, for instance, you have the reservative cost system where the alleged perpetrator can’t seek some mediation. There’s also non-profitial sentencing also in place in labor where small petty crimes once pleaded guilty, you can do some community service and those initiatives in Lagos”.

“And of course DPP floating system which attempts to just not even allow some cases alleged offenses get into the criminal justice system to the court. So we need actually a rough kind of intervention which includes technology also that is being done also in Lagos where they have a crime directory”.

“So unless you have this in place where people data have been collected at the police station level and at the court level, we are supposed to have a situation where the prisons and the correction Centres need to be congested and let me just go further”.

“It’s not that they are congested per se. The congestion can be dealt with by having additional correctional. What we have even in Lagos is what was built in the maybe in the 70s. What we need is more correction of us. For instance, in Lagos. Lagos does not have more than maybe 15,000 inmates, whether they have been fully prosecuted or are we to try”.

The issue of Prison decongestion in Nigeria is within the purview of the States and needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves.

Legal Practitioner, Bayo Akinlade, a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu branch disclosed this while speaking on TVC News.

Mr Akinlade who is also the convener of the Duty’s Solicitors Network, said the majority of inmates in Prison or Custodial Centres across the Country are those on offences committed against the States.

He added that unless a decision is made to have States Prisons or Custodial Centres different from Federal everything is the prerogative of the States.

He also called for more attention to be paid the crimes committed by inmates wondering how an inmate can be in Custody for 7 years for an offence that carries a jail sentence of 3 years.

He made allusion to the case of film maker, Seun Egbegbe, who has been in custody for longer than the prison sentence that was handed to him for his Crimes.

He said this is another instance of States not doing due diligence on issues like that.

He however commended the Lagos State Government for its various initiative on access to Justice for citizens.

He called for more to be done on this issue.

He also said States Committees on the Prerogative of Mercy must meet more regularly to free prisoners as against the current system of once every 6 months or a year.

He said the move by the minister of Interior on the issue of Prison decongestion though commendable will not make any major difference asking what happens after the 30% decongestion.

 

Read more Below….

“The way to decongest the Prisons and Custodial Centres is within the purview of state government. It doesn’t really add up because if you’re talking about congestion because most of the inmates are there because of state crimes committed within the state and it really makes no sense, except you want to have state prisons and distinguish between federal prisons and state prisons”.

“So then you have to consider who are the agencies that make this arrest before they go to court, which of course are also state courts. It’s a federal agency police. And we don’t have any state police”.

“So what the minister was saying actually I wouldn’t understand how distinguishing between crimes committed by people under state jurisdiction and federal has anything to do with decongestion”.

“But the benefit is also saying that there are quite a number of inmates who have no reason to remain in custody. In particular, inmate was tried, a judgment order was given recently for someone, I think for seven years thereabout and found that he had already stayed beyond that in prisons”.

“There is what they call the prerogative of mercy. There is perhaps what they can do to ensure that people who have stayed way beyond the crimes they’ve committed and let go. Well, this exercise takes place in every state. You have the State committee on the prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Chief Judge looking into this”.

“You also have respective Ministry of justice also looking into this. And above all, you still have the chief judges of the state going ceremoniously into the Nigerian prison to release inmates”.
“These are usually annual events or once in six months. What we have on record is that the Nigerian police and the army and other enforcement agencies arresting people every day. Every day people have been arranged in courts and every day they are going into prison custody. So if you have a program that only occurs once in a year or once in six months, I don’t think that’s enough”.

“Any of those programs can tackle what the minister wants to deal with. And above all, even if we do this exercise and we reduce by 30% what happens the day after, unless we have some serious mechanisms in place to curtail the abuse of power by the police in arresting”.

“Except you have other initiatives also in place. Some of them are in Lagos already. For instance, the DPP filtering system where people cannot just go and be arraigned by magistrate without going through the DPP filtering system to make sure that those crimes allegedly committed are valid crimes and they have enough evidence to prosecute”.

“So we have a long way to go. Indeed, it would seem that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system if some 70% of our inmates are awaiting trial, many of them who are first or minor offenders”.

“Usually what we do is punitive rather than corrective. There’s community service where many offenders can be subjected to. How involved do you see the state government in this process? Well, I can speak for the Lagos state government”.

“There are quite a few innovations here in Lagos, for instance, you have the reservative cost system where the alleged perpetrator can’t seek some mediation. There’s also non-profitial sentencing also in place in labor where small petty crimes once pleaded guilty, you can do some community service and those initiatives in Lagos”.

“And of course DPP floating system which attempts to just not even allow some cases alleged offenses get into the criminal justice system to the court. So we need actually a rough kind of intervention which includes technology also that is being done also in Lagos where they have a crime directory”.

“So unless you have this in place where people data have been collected at the police station level and at the court level, we are supposed to have a situation where the prisons and the correction Centres need to be congested and let me just go further”.

“It’s not that they are congested per se. The congestion can be dealt with by having additional correctional. What we have even in Lagos is what was built in the maybe in the 70s. What we need is more correction of us. For instance, in Lagos. Lagos does not have more than maybe 15,000 inmates, whether they have been fully prosecuted or are we to try”.

The issue of Prison decongestion in Nigeria is within the purview of the States and needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves.

Legal Practitioner, Bayo Akinlade, a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu branch disclosed this while speaking on TVC News.

Mr Akinlade who is also the convener of the Duty’s Solicitors Network, said the majority of inmates in Prison or Custodial Centres across the Country are those on offences committed against the States.

He added that unless a decision is made to have States Prisons or Custodial Centres different from Federal everything is the prerogative of the States.

He also called for more attention to be paid the crimes committed by inmates wondering how an inmate can be in Custody for 7 years for an offence that carries a jail sentence of 3 years.

He made allusion to the case of film maker, Seun Egbegbe, who has been in custody for longer than the prison sentence that was handed to him for his Crimes.

He said this is another instance of States not doing due diligence on issues like that.

He however commended the Lagos State Government for its various initiative on access to Justice for citizens.

He called for more to be done on this issue.

He also said States Committees on the Prerogative of Mercy must meet more regularly to free prisoners as against the current system of once every 6 months or a year.

He said the move by the minister of Interior on the issue of Prison decongestion though commendable will not make any major difference asking what happens after the 30% decongestion.

 

Read more Below….

“The way to decongest the Prisons and Custodial Centres is within the purview of state government. It doesn’t really add up because if you’re talking about congestion because most of the inmates are there because of state crimes committed within the state and it really makes no sense, except you want to have state prisons and distinguish between federal prisons and state prisons”.

“So then you have to consider who are the agencies that make this arrest before they go to court, which of course are also state courts. It’s a federal agency police. And we don’t have any state police”.

“So what the minister was saying actually I wouldn’t understand how distinguishing between crimes committed by people under state jurisdiction and federal has anything to do with decongestion”.

“But the benefit is also saying that there are quite a number of inmates who have no reason to remain in custody. In particular, inmate was tried, a judgment order was given recently for someone, I think for seven years thereabout and found that he had already stayed beyond that in prisons”.

“There is what they call the prerogative of mercy. There is perhaps what they can do to ensure that people who have stayed way beyond the crimes they’ve committed and let go. Well, this exercise takes place in every state. You have the State committee on the prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Chief Judge looking into this”.

“You also have respective Ministry of justice also looking into this. And above all, you still have the chief judges of the state going ceremoniously into the Nigerian prison to release inmates”.
“These are usually annual events or once in six months. What we have on record is that the Nigerian police and the army and other enforcement agencies arresting people every day. Every day people have been arranged in courts and every day they are going into prison custody. So if you have a program that only occurs once in a year or once in six months, I don’t think that’s enough”.

“Any of those programs can tackle what the minister wants to deal with. And above all, even if we do this exercise and we reduce by 30% what happens the day after, unless we have some serious mechanisms in place to curtail the abuse of power by the police in arresting”.

“Except you have other initiatives also in place. Some of them are in Lagos already. For instance, the DPP filtering system where people cannot just go and be arraigned by magistrate without going through the DPP filtering system to make sure that those crimes allegedly committed are valid crimes and they have enough evidence to prosecute”.

“So we have a long way to go. Indeed, it would seem that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system if some 70% of our inmates are awaiting trial, many of them who are first or minor offenders”.

“Usually what we do is punitive rather than corrective. There’s community service where many offenders can be subjected to. How involved do you see the state government in this process? Well, I can speak for the Lagos state government”.

“There are quite a few innovations here in Lagos, for instance, you have the reservative cost system where the alleged perpetrator can’t seek some mediation. There’s also non-profitial sentencing also in place in labor where small petty crimes once pleaded guilty, you can do some community service and those initiatives in Lagos”.

“And of course DPP floating system which attempts to just not even allow some cases alleged offenses get into the criminal justice system to the court. So we need actually a rough kind of intervention which includes technology also that is being done also in Lagos where they have a crime directory”.

“So unless you have this in place where people data have been collected at the police station level and at the court level, we are supposed to have a situation where the prisons and the correction Centres need to be congested and let me just go further”.

“It’s not that they are congested per se. The congestion can be dealt with by having additional correctional. What we have even in Lagos is what was built in the maybe in the 70s. What we need is more correction of us. For instance, in Lagos. Lagos does not have more than maybe 15,000 inmates, whether they have been fully prosecuted or are we to try”.

The issue of Prison decongestion in Nigeria is within the purview of the States and needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves.

Legal Practitioner, Bayo Akinlade, a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikorodu branch disclosed this while speaking on TVC News.

Mr Akinlade who is also the convener of the Duty’s Solicitors Network, said the majority of inmates in Prison or Custodial Centres across the Country are those on offences committed against the States.

He added that unless a decision is made to have States Prisons or Custodial Centres different from Federal everything is the prerogative of the States.

He also called for more attention to be paid the crimes committed by inmates wondering how an inmate can be in Custody for 7 years for an offence that carries a jail sentence of 3 years.

He made allusion to the case of film maker, Seun Egbegbe, who has been in custody for longer than the prison sentence that was handed to him for his Crimes.

He said this is another instance of States not doing due diligence on issues like that.

He however commended the Lagos State Government for its various initiative on access to Justice for citizens.

He called for more to be done on this issue.

He also said States Committees on the Prerogative of Mercy must meet more regularly to free prisoners as against the current system of once every 6 months or a year.

He said the move by the minister of Interior on the issue of Prison decongestion though commendable will not make any major difference asking what happens after the 30% decongestion.

 

Read more Below….

“The way to decongest the Prisons and Custodial Centres is within the purview of state government. It doesn’t really add up because if you’re talking about congestion because most of the inmates are there because of state crimes committed within the state and it really makes no sense, except you want to have state prisons and distinguish between federal prisons and state prisons”.

“So then you have to consider who are the agencies that make this arrest before they go to court, which of course are also state courts. It’s a federal agency police. And we don’t have any state police”.

“So what the minister was saying actually I wouldn’t understand how distinguishing between crimes committed by people under state jurisdiction and federal has anything to do with decongestion”.

“But the benefit is also saying that there are quite a number of inmates who have no reason to remain in custody. In particular, inmate was tried, a judgment order was given recently for someone, I think for seven years thereabout and found that he had already stayed beyond that in prisons”.

“There is what they call the prerogative of mercy. There is perhaps what they can do to ensure that people who have stayed way beyond the crimes they’ve committed and let go. Well, this exercise takes place in every state. You have the State committee on the prerogative of Mercy chaired by the Chief Judge looking into this”.

“You also have respective Ministry of justice also looking into this. And above all, you still have the chief judges of the state going ceremoniously into the Nigerian prison to release inmates”.
“These are usually annual events or once in six months. What we have on record is that the Nigerian police and the army and other enforcement agencies arresting people every day. Every day people have been arranged in courts and every day they are going into prison custody. So if you have a program that only occurs once in a year or once in six months, I don’t think that’s enough”.

“Any of those programs can tackle what the minister wants to deal with. And above all, even if we do this exercise and we reduce by 30% what happens the day after, unless we have some serious mechanisms in place to curtail the abuse of power by the police in arresting”.

“Except you have other initiatives also in place. Some of them are in Lagos already. For instance, the DPP filtering system where people cannot just go and be arraigned by magistrate without going through the DPP filtering system to make sure that those crimes allegedly committed are valid crimes and they have enough evidence to prosecute”.

“So we have a long way to go. Indeed, it would seem that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system if some 70% of our inmates are awaiting trial, many of them who are first or minor offenders”.

“Usually what we do is punitive rather than corrective. There’s community service where many offenders can be subjected to. How involved do you see the state government in this process? Well, I can speak for the Lagos state government”.

“There are quite a few innovations here in Lagos, for instance, you have the reservative cost system where the alleged perpetrator can’t seek some mediation. There’s also non-profitial sentencing also in place in labor where small petty crimes once pleaded guilty, you can do some community service and those initiatives in Lagos”.

“And of course DPP floating system which attempts to just not even allow some cases alleged offenses get into the criminal justice system to the court. So we need actually a rough kind of intervention which includes technology also that is being done also in Lagos where they have a crime directory”.

“So unless you have this in place where people data have been collected at the police station level and at the court level, we are supposed to have a situation where the prisons and the correction Centres need to be congested and let me just go further”.

“It’s not that they are congested per se. The congestion can be dealt with by having additional correctional. What we have even in Lagos is what was built in the maybe in the 70s. What we need is more correction of us. For instance, in Lagos. Lagos does not have more than maybe 15,000 inmates, whether they have been fully prosecuted or are we to try”.