The authorities should address issues of infrastructure and welfare of prisoners
No other prison facility in the country has witnessed the worrying trend of jailbreaks than the Koton Karfe Custodial Centre in Kogi State that was built in 1934. Within the past decade alone, the medium security custodial centre has experienced four separate jailbreaks, with hundreds of inmates spilling into the streets, and endangering public safety. Two weeks ago, 12 inmates of the centre strangulated one of the officers on duty, overpowered others, and fled into the night via “the collapsed portion of a window.”
Unfortunately, this sort of tragic breach is not restricted to Koton Karfe. It is a disturbing national phenomenon. Indeed, between 2015 and 2022, there were about 15 jailbreaks, resulting in over 7000 escapes. Thus, besides investigating the jailbreaks, it is also important to review the conditions in our prisons that encourage such morbid desperation. From Abakaliki to Bauchi, Sagamu, to Jos, Ondo, Lagos, Ekiti, Minna, Kogi, Benin, Owerri, none of the custodial centres seems secure. During the EndSARS protests in 2020, two prison facilities were attacked in Edo State and about 2000 inmates escaped. More than half the numbers are still at large. But perhaps the most embarrassing was the attack on Kuje Custodial Centre in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 2016 by about 300 men, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices. They freed about 600 inmates, including many top Boko Haram commanders held in the facility.
Ordinarily, these are supposed to be well fortified structures. But they are not. In fact, the Koton Karfe prison was once overwhelmed by floods, leading to the escape of many hardened criminals. And what these frequent jailbreaks reflect is the lack of attention to the prison system in general and its infrastructure in particular. Nearly all our prisons were built by either the colonialists or First Republic politicians and they were designed for smaller population of inmates and a different type of criminals.
The many jailbreaks reinforce the argument that the Nigerian prisons are in dire need of serious decongestion. But efforts aimed at ameliorating the plight of Awaiting Trial Inmates who populate most of them would come to naught without a judicial reform to overhaul the country’s criminal justice system. As we have earlier stated here, if crime investigation continues to drag on endlessly, if suspects are detained indefinitely in custody or dumped in prisons on trumped-up charges, if court trial is stalled by endless adjournments at the instance of the prosecution for lack of vital evidence, the Nigerian prisons will continue to incur outrage.
More importantly, the horrific conditions prevailing in Nigerian prisons degrade humanity such that after spending long jail terms, inmates come out as hardened criminals. The prisoners, finding themselves in the hell hole without speedy trial, are so desperate to do anything to regain their freedom. Besides, over the years, the provision of welfare services to inmates in Nigerian prisons has been far from satisfactory. Many prisons do not meet the minimum standard for the treatment of inmates while others violate the right to medical services and the likes as stipulated by rule 31 of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
Recently, President Bola Tinubu approved the relocation of 29 correctional centres, including those in Suleja and Ikoyi, to address issues of security and infrastructural deficiencies. The Minister of the Interior, Tunji-Ojo, said the move would ensure modernised correctional systems that support both officers and inmates. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) could also collaborate with the National Human Rights Commission, the Legal Aid Council and the human rights community to help decongest the prisons. This may be the time to try innovative ideas to keep bad people out of circulation and perhaps make them better citizens when they return to the larger society.
