DEATH IN PRISON CUSTODY

All prisoners have right to life until the law says otherwise

The recent revelation by a prison controller, Mr. Olumide Tinuoye that no fewer than 32 prison inmates died in 2016 in one particular prison in Lagos State owing to their inability to access funds for good medication, has again underlined the deplorable condition of the Nigerian prisons. More depressing was the claim that officials often had to use their personal money to buy drugs for the inmates, while others depended on the philanthropic gestures of churches, mosques and other good people.

Although Tinuoye’s testimony is not new, it is nevertheless unfortunate as we have on this platform consistently drawn the attention of all the relevant authorities to the sad state of our prisons across the country. Despite several promises of successive governments to reform the nation’s prisons, they remain nothing but dungeons where both the awaiting trial inmates and the convicted are just waiting to die.

Apart from the fact that many of the inmates in our prisons are poorly fed and ill-clad, they are, in most cases, given little or no medical attention in contravention of the universally accepted minimum standards. Worse still, most Nigerian prisons are congested. Not infrequently, this congestion has led to several jail breaks and outbreak of diseases causing the death of many prisoners.

Whether the authorities realise it or not, those in jail awaiting trail and convicted prisoners in Nigeria are members of the human family, and are therefore entitled to the enjoyment of their fundamental human rights as enshrined in Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution and Article four of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, ratified and domesticated by Nigeria. As the Supreme Court decided in the popular case of Peter Nemi V Attorney-General of Lagos State, the right to life is available even to condemned prisoners or prisoners on death row until their execution is carried out according to the law.

A reform of the country’s criminal justice system is one concrete way of ameliorating the appalling conditions in which the Nigerian prisoners live and such reform requires not just sweet words, but concrete action. For instance, the dumping of suspects in prison without trial must stop. Those who cannot be charged to court within two or three months should be released from detention as stipulated in our constitution. A situation in which criminal prosecutions take forever to conclude should also be discouraged.

Furthermore, to subject awaiting trial inmates to inhumane treatment or deny convicted prisoners their fundamental rights cannot stand the test of civilised conduct, as it debases their intrinsic worth as human beings. In a society governed by law, nobody should die in prison without being convicted of any offence, no matter the gravity of the charge.

Having these individuals languish in prison without any attempt at hearing their cases is a clear violation of their rights. While we do not advocate a wholesale release of these detainees, it does not make any sense keeping people behind the bars for years in excess of the length of the prison term they would have served had they been tried and convicted. We believe that the agony of suspects is needlessly prolonged by not bringing up charges before them in courts where they would come face-to-face with the law: so that if convicted they could be jailed accordingly, and if found innocent, they are released to go home and rebuild their lives. We do not believe that the end of justice is served by keeping accused persons under indefinite incarceration.

As things stand, almost all Nigerian prisons lack the minimum facilities suitable for human habitation. The result is outbreak of diseases in the prison environment and eventual death of many inmates. Such a state of affair should not be allowed to continue.