Aregbesola Urges Govs To Sign Death Warrant Of 3,008 Condemned Inmates

*Says 74% Of Prison Inmates Are Awaiting Trial

Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola yesterday requested governors to sign the death warrants of convicts on death row who have exhausted all avenues of appeal to free up space in the nation’s correctional facilities.

A total of 50,992 out of 68,747 inmates in Nigerian prisons are awaiting trial. Minister of Interior and immediate past governor of Osun State, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, disclosed this on Friday at the inauguration of the Osun State headquarters of the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS) in Osogbo.

Aregbesola described congestion of the custodial facilities as a main challenge of the correctional service, pointing out that the entire national custodial facilities have the maximum capacity for 57,278 inmates but as of the last count earlier in the week, there was a total population of 68,747 inmates made up of 67,422 males and 1,325 females.

The minister said: “We have, therefore, shot above the capacity by 18 per cent. But I must add that the congestion is an urban phenomenon limited to big cities like Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt. There are facilities in non-urban areas that are under-populated.

“It is in the urban areas that most crimes are committed and relevant courts are located, leading to the overstretching of the custodial facilities located in such cities. It should also be noted that 50,992 inmates, representing 74 per cent of the total population of inmates in our custodial centres, are awaiting-trial inmates while only 17,755 inmates, which is mere 26 per cent, are actual convicts.”

Aregbesola advocated a deliberate judicial action that will lead to the acceleration of trials with strict deadlines set for the conclusion of investigations, trials and delivery of judgments in all cases.

He said: “A lot of people commit crimes by sneering at our judicial system, in the belief that they would frustrate and weary the prosecution. An end should come to such shenanigans.

“This reform should also include the introduction of the parole system; that subject to good behaviour and evidence of reformation, a convict can be released before the completion of the original sentence.

“This should also include that a convict should have a timeline for parole review. This is a strong motivation for good behaviour and confidence building among convicts.

“We will need the cooperation of state governments in addressing this challenge. The overwhelming majority of offenders are state offenders being tried by their respective state governments.

“The state governments can, therefore, accelerate the wheel of justice. A lot of inmates have been in custody for a period longer than the maximum sentence their alleged offences carry. This, fundamentally, is a miscarriage of justice.

“So many factors are responsible for this, including but not limited to tardy investigations and prosecutions, personnel shortage in courts, movement of suspects to court, health challenges for the suspects and deliberate delay tactics or sheer incompetence by counsels on both sides, leading to unending adjournments and prolonged stay in custody. But the bottom line is that delayed justice is a denied justice.”

The minister disclosed that the Federal Government was building a 3,000 high-capacity custodial centre each in Karchi, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja; Kano, Kano State and Bori in Rivers State.

He explained that each of these facilities would have courts for the trial of the inmates and the plan was to extend the project to the six geo-political zones in the country.

The former governor, who noted that the Kano project was nearing completion, said, “when these projects are completed, they will ease congestion considerably and enhance the capacity to manage our facilities for corrections.”

According to him, the Federal Government is working out a public-private partnership in which custodial centres will become a huge enterprise park where manufacturing, vocational training and agricultural activities and all artisanal trades will take place.

“Our target is to make inmates that passed through our system to be economically viable and equipped with better skills and character, compared to anyone, when they complete their terms and are back in the society.

“I am confident that this state command headquarters complex will provide the officers and men of the NCoS with a conducive working environment that will elicit greater commitment, productivity and efficiency.

“The challenges of safe and effective custody at the custodial centres come, therefore, from the awaiting-trial inmates, given their numerical strength. This fact greatly limits our capacity for corrections since awaiting-trial inmates being suspects can only be accommodated and not reformed. Reformation comes after conviction and not before.

“This is the reality of the management of inmates that must be squarely registered in the minds of the Nigerian public for a better appreciation of the service and its limitations at the rehabilitation, reformation and reintegration of convicts and a reduction in recidivism.”