REFORMING THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

There is need to speed up the criminal justice administration

Shortly before he left office, a report titled, ‘A documentation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration scorecard (2015–2023)’ was released to catalogue his achievement in the justice administration sector. The report revealed that in 2015, there were 56,704 inmates in various prisons across the country, but by 2022, the figure had increased to 75,509. Of this figure, according to the report, 52,710 inmates, representing 69.8 per cent, are awaiting trial. While many of those unfortunate Nigerians may have spent longer than the period for which they would have been jailed if their cases had been promptly disposed of and they were found guilty, it is worse that many of them could be innocent victims of frameup.   

Apparently concerned by the report as well as the delay in determination of cases in court, Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, promised a national summit on justice upon assuming office last August. At a forum on the review of the implementation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015 & Administration of Criminal Justice Laws of States where he made the pledge, all the critical stakeholders were present. They included the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola; President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem; the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court and the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory; the Solicitor-General of the Federation and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Mrs. Beatrice Jedy-Agba, as well as the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Yakubu Maikyau, SAN. More than six months after, nothing has changed.

Having thousands of individuals languish in prison without any attempt at hearing their cases is a clear violation of their fundamental rights. As we have argued on this page repeatedly, what the huge gulf between the number of convicted persons and those awaiting trial clearly reveals is that the machinery of justice dispensation is abysmally slow. While we do not advocate a wholesale release of all detainees in our prisons, it does not make any sense to keep innocent people behind bars for years as it is currently the case. However, we must also stress that efforts at decongesting our prisons or ameliorating the plight of awaiting trial inmates (ATM) would come to naught without adequate judicial reform aimed at a complete overhauling of the country’s criminal justice system. That is the only enduring way we can ensure that our prisons are not populated by innocent people while the real criminals roam the streets.  

Meanwhile, the growing number of death-row inmates is also a serious challenge that needs to be addressed. Statutorily, governors are not bound to sign the warrants for the execution of such convicts since they have the powers to grant pardon or commute the sentences. Besides, the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS) Act provides in Section 12(2c) that “where an inmate sentenced to death has exhausted all legal procedures for appeal and a period of 10 years has elapsed without execution of the sentence, the Chief Judge may commute the sentence of death to life imprisonment.”  

The situation in our prisons also calls for urgent attention. For instance, with a capacity for 560 beds, Kuje Prison has a population of almost 2,000 inmates. There is need for some intervention measures which should include access to justice programme for the inmates. This can be done if judicial authorities conduct prison inspections on a regular basis while there must always be a swift response to complaints. But we enjoin Fagbemi to fulfill his pledge by instituting a reform of the criminal justice administration in Nigeria to deal with these burning issues.