The Nigerian Correctional Service Act 2019(NCSA) was signed into law by the President in 2019. It repealed the Prison Act Cap. P29, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 and set guidelines on the true purpose of correctional centres in Nigeria. Amongst the many changes, the new Act heralded, one outstanding change is the renaming of the Nigerian Prison Service to become the Nigerian Correctional Service. Prior to the enactment of the law, the entire prison system was dreadfully infamous. Gory tales were told by former inmates of how life in the ‘inside world’ is short, hard and brutish. Feeding, sanitary conditions and medical care were reputed to be about the worst among prisons in the world. Verily, the overriding purpose of the Government in making a new law is to cause a change in the entire system, to supervise and oversee the emergence of the prison system from the hangover of the colonial era and usher in true reform. For that to happen carefully deliberate action must be embarked on, otherwise, the change of name would be a mere cosmetic application.
A number of innovations with regards to correctional services were brought into the new law. Before we go into these innovations, let us see what the law provides as the purpose of custodial service.
Section 10 of the NCSA outlines the purpose of the custodial service in paragraphs (a) – (k). Key among the outlined purposes are in paragraphs (f) and (g). Paragraph (f) provides thus, ‘implementing reformation and rehabilitation programmes to enhance the rehabilitation of inmates back into the society.’ And paragraph (g) says, ‘initiating behaviour modification in inmates through the provision of medical, psychological, spiritual and counselling services for all offenders including violent extremists.’
These are noble and lofty ideals no doubt and to properly situate these points vis a vis the overriding purpose we will go on to see the state of the facilities and services rendered to inmates therein.
Let us pause and ask, what is intended to be actualized by introducing the word correction while referring to custodial service, and to replace the word prison?
Correction entails change; a complete departure from the previous way of doing things; initiating something better and different. The online version of the Merriam Webster dictionary defines correction as, among others, ‘the act of making something (such as an error or a bad condition) accurate or better; the act of correcting something’
And with regards to people, it says, ‘the act or process of punishing and changing the behaviour of people who have committed crimes.’
As the facilities and amenities in these centres are presently constituted, can we reasonably say or infer that the purposes outlined in paragraphs (f) and (g) amongst others can be achieved? Can true change be birthed in the lives of inmates or deviants in the present-day Nigerian Correctional centres? The process of changing the behaviour of offenders is one that entails the spiritual, mental and physical aspects of a person’s life. It surely transcends just a renaming of the body or Organization that oversees custodial service.
To answer these questions, we look to what obtains in these centres. There are about 240 correctional centres in Nigeria made up of farm centres, holding locations, satellite centres, medium and maximum centres. These centres are scattered all over the country and hold tens of thousands of inmates; people who stay for as short as one week or as long as 15 years in some cases. Most of them are awaiting trial inmates who may be victims of trumped-up charges from an inhuman policing system and these persons will end up in the society after their release. What they become when they are released is a function of the state of facilities in which they are kept.
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Housing/Living Quarters:
Nigeria’s correctional centres are a bequest from the colonial era; an era in which crime and social deviance was largely unheard of. The housing and accommodation provided for the inmates was reflective of the era. It was simple and uncomplicated. They were more than adequate for the few people who found their way there. Upon independence from the colonial masters came the expected increase in population and increase in crime. Sadly, there has not been a commensurate improvement in the accommodation and living conditions in these centres. Today we see dilapidated structures in many correctional facilities; buildings constructed in some instances, as far back as 1800s. In a research paper by Ibrahim Danjuma, Rohaida Nordin & Mohd Munzil Muhamad titled, ‘Prisons’ condition and treatment of prisoners in Nigeria: towards genuine reformation of prisoners or a violation of prisoners’ rights?, published in the Commonwealth Law Bulletin, Volume 44, Issue 1 (10 January 2019), it is reported, ‘The structures of most of the Nigerian prisons are antique and dilapidated, with disastrous sanitary
conditions and without adequate vocational or recreational facilities. These may be related to the fact that most of the prisons were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For instance, Warri prison was built in 1805; Azare in 1816; Bauchi in 1820; Ningi in 1827; Misau in 1831; Degema in 1855; and Calabar in 1890. Others were built in the early 20th century: Abeokuta old and Onitsha in 1900; Idah Prison and Arochukwu in 1901; Umuahia in 1902; Zaria in 1903; Bidah and Awka prisons in 1904; Benin and Kazaure in 1908; Pankshin, Agbo, Ubiaja, Ahoada in 1910; Owo and Aba in 1911; Ikot Abasi, Old Prison Kebbi and Biu prisons in 1912; Okigwe in 1913; Suleja, Illorin, Malumfashi and Yola prisons in 1914; Kaduna, Ankpa, Enugu and MPS Oji prisons in 1915. Amnesty International reported that many of them are in need of renovation, as the infrastructure is old, some buildings cannot longer be used and ceilings in some rooms are about to collapse. Equally, a large number of prisons were constructed with mud bricks such as Azare, Suleja, Dekina and Koton Karfe prisons.’
Between 1960 and this present day, how many correctional centres have been constructed in Nigeria? Which of Nigeria’s 240 correctional centres meets the minimum international standard as a place where human beings undergoing the correctional process should be housed? What is corrective about a location or centre where roofs are leaking and the structure feels uninhabitable uncomfortable; absolutely inconveniencing? Pray, what kind of correction do you envisage in a facility where blankets, mattresses and other provisions which are regarded as basic are nonexistent? It will be almost impossible for an inmate not to see his stay in any of these centres as a punitive measure instead of a corrective or restorative process. If Government is truly serious about correction, funds should be voted for a massive renewal of the housing and living quarters in these centres. Before the inmates in these centres can be rehabilitated, these facilities must be firstly rehabilitated. For there to be true renewal of the human mind in these locations, the locations must first be renewed. Lord Denning, in the famous case of UAC v McFOY said that you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand; it will not stand, it will fall. Similarly, nothing good can come out of our present state of facilities made for correction. No dead thing can give birth to a living thing.
- Inmate feeding and Nutrition: In 2019, while defending the budget estimate of the prisons, the then Controller General of Prisons ( as they were then referred to)said that about N450.00 was the budget for each inmate’s feeding per day. The estimate summed up to about N17b annually. Beyond budgets and budgeting, in reality what nature of food are the inmates of these correctional centres served every day? These questions are central in unearthing what goes on in the system and towards achieving true correction. Over the years, I have interacted with numerous inmates released through our free legal service outreach and every one of them, without previously meeting each other said the same thing. In a nutshell, they said that the food they were served is not fit for dogs. They painted bellyaching pictures of half cooked beans floating on water without salt or oil and garri chaff in place of the real garri. They submitted that what was served as egusi soup could not be rightly described without causing the hearer to throw up. What is the position today? And how does correction and reform of the deviant’s mind and life be attained in this dehumanizing set up? An attempt at correction in the sense of stimulating and achieving real change in the lives of these inmates in the present circumstances in this context will rather amount to a huge joke. Is it a wonder then that most inmates of Nigerian correctional centres are sickly and unkempt? They suffer from malnutrition in most cases and lack immunity to fight simple ailments. Would it not be another wonder of the world for a medical Doctor to certify such an inmate healthy and fit? There is a common saying that a hungry man is an angry man. And I daresay that an angry and hungry man will naturally and effortlessly resist any attempt at correcting him. There cannot be reform in the mind or mental renewal in a physically hungry and weak body. The purposes of custodial service will be best attained in a radical change of the system as it also has to do with the feeding of the inmates.
To be continued.
Ben Abraham is the Founder, Zarephath Aid.