ABUJA – The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said on Tuesday it would ensure the enforcement of the rights of inmates awaiting trial in the country.
The Executive Secretary of the commission, Prof. Bem Angwe, said this at the inauguration of the commission’s 2014 nationwide audit of prisons and other detention facilities in Abuja.
While addressing inmates at the Kuje Prison, Angwe said that the commission had developed a process to ensure stakeholders in the security sector facilitated the trials of inmates in the country.
“We are still confronted with this issue of people awaiting trial for more than 10 years.
“Some of the factors responsible for your continued incarceration without trial have been the delay in coming out with legal advice from the various ministries of justice of states and the number of vehicles available for such prisons to convey prison inmates to courts every day.
“One way of addressing this is we have sued the various state governments that are responsible for your prosecution and for ensuring your legal advice comes up timely.
“We are asking the court to enforce your rights; we are asking the court to make the government pay you compensation.
“We have written to all prison authorities in Nigeria to give us statistics of courts that each prison in Nigeria is servicing and the number of vehicles available to them and we are receiving such data.
“We are going to ensure that those of you who are innocent are not made to go through the process of incarceration contrary to the provisions of the constitution of Nigeria which guarantees your innocence until the contrary is proved,“ he said.
Angwe said that the 2013 audit exercise carried out by the commission showed that out of 51,252 inmates in 173 prisons audited 18,657 had spent more than three months awaiting trial.
He said that the commission had obtained lists and warrants of awaiting trial detainees from some state prison commands and had filed actions for the enforcement of their rights.
He said the commission had carried out periodic audits of prisons and other detention facilities in the country since 1999 to ensure they were in conformity with international standards.
He added that the 2014 exercise would be carried out in the six geo-political zones in the country.
The executive secretary who also listened to the complaints from some of the inmates assured them that the commission would provide tools needed for skills acquisition to ensure that inmates were adequately reformed.
Also speaking, the Controller-General of Nigerian Prisons Service, Mr Zakari Ibrahim, said the Nigerian criminal justice system needed to be assessed by stakeholders in the sector to ensure its effectiveness.
Ibrahim who was represented by Mr Kasali Yusuf, Controller of Prisons, FCT said that the Kuje prison had the capacity to take 560 inmates but had 754 inmates with 509 of them awaiting trial.
He noted that this posed a challenge to the management of the prison facilities.
“The challenge we have in the prison is that of the awaiting trail inmates.
“You can see that nearly 80 per cent of inmates are awaiting trial and the problem is not limited to Nigerian prison service alone.
“We have some other agencies involved in handling the awaiting trial inmates.
“On our own part, we ensure that we take the inmates to court when due; their needs are taken care of within the prisons and we don’t have unnecessary delay here in taking them to court.
“The executive secretary has dropped four other members of his staff to assess some critical areas where there is need for assessment.
“In the next four days we believe those areas would be identified and possible intervention from the National Human Rights Commission and other stakeholders will be seen.
“And those stakeholders would be called to take charge of their own responsibilities,“ he stated.
He expressed optimism that overcrowded prisons in the country would be decongested if all stakeholders would play their parts in ensuring an effective criminal justice system. (NAN)
