Prisons and human rights abuses in Nigeria (part 1)

Within the general population, there is an ill-conceived notion that prison inmates have no rights. That is false! Their rights may be limited; but they have a degree of human and civil rights that is guaranteed by the constitution, by international conventions and the UN declarations. For instance, the UN General Assembly adopted what it called the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, on December 14, 1990. Therefore, prisoners cannot and should not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment; they are to have full access to due process and equal protection and should not be discriminated against.

Furthermore, they are entitled to adequate medical and psychiatric care. And their physical safety must be also assured at all times. But is this the case in Nigeria? No, absolutely not! Successive Nigerian governments haveviolated the rights of the prison population – and we especially know this to be the case in the last couple of years. What’s going on and going wrong with the Nigerian prison system can be gleaned from many reports and especially from a recent report entitled, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

This 55-page US Department of State report “highlights the continued pursuit of ‘free and equal dignity in human rights’ in every corner of the world. It draws attention to the growing challenges facing individuals and organisations as governments around the world fall short of their obligation to uphold universal human rights.” One of the countries the report looked at was Nigeria – noting that “the most serious human rights abuses during the year were those committed by Boko Haram.”

This US Congress mandated report is so detailed that it also chronicled those infractions “committed by security services, which perpetrated extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, beatings, arbitrary detention, mistreatment of detainees, and destruction of property; and widespread societal violence.” The CRHRP Report went on to say that “other serious human rights problems included vigilante killings; prolonged pretrial detention; denial of fair public trial; and executive influence on the judiciary.”

Speaking of prison and detention centre conditions, the report said they “remained harsh and life-threatening. Prisoners, a majority of whom had not been tried, were subjected to extrajudicial execution, torture, gross overcrowding, food and water shortages, inadequate medical treatment, deliberate and incidental exposure to heat and sun.”

And in terms of infrastructure, the report noted that “most of the country’s 234 prisons, built 70 to 80 years ago, lacked basic facilities…Disease remained pervasive in cramped, poorly ventilated prison facilities, which had chronic shortages of medical supplies. Inadequate medical treatment caused many prisoners to die from treatable illnesses. Lengthy pretrial detention remained a serious problem.”

Taken in totality, the findings of the US Department of State, as contained in the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices report, are not exactly new. Human and civil rights abuses, along with the terrible and inhumane conditions of the Nigerian prison system have been well documented by the local civil society and by international organisations such as the Amnesty International. What the CRHRP report did was to reemphasise and shed brighter light on mistreatments, cruel conditions and subhuman culture.

According to Dr. I. W. Orakwe, “The origin of modern Prisons Service in Nigeria is 1861. That was the year when conceptually, Western-type prison was established in Nigeria.” In essence, “the prison system has been around long before the amalgamation of 1914.” Except perhaps during the Abacha and Babangida eras, the Nigerian prison system has never had it so bad in terms of administration, infrastructure and its raison d’être (reason for existence).

Nigerian prisons are not reorienting institutions, but a dehumanising one. Reform is no longer the objective here; but instead, they beat and break you, and physically and or mentally destroy you. On February 10, 2014, the Voice of America reported that “Rights organisations in Nigeria allege that conditions in the prisons are appalling and say they are investigating allegations of overcrowding, beatings and killings.”

These are a few of the conditions some 600 Nigerians currently serving time in British prisons would be returning to (in line with the “compulsory prisoner transfer agreement” between both countries). In pursuant of this agreement, the David Cameron government has “promised £1m to help upgrade Nigerian jails.” This figure may sound charitable; but really, it is peanuts, crumbs on the part of the Cameron’s administration. According to a Ministry of Justice Information Release entitled, “Costs per place and costs per prisoner by individual prison,” the government spends about £40,000 per prisoner per annum.

If the British Government is serious about helping Nigeria with its prison system, then, it should remit no less than £50m – this in addition to helping with training, equipment and best practices. In addition, it should be willing to help with the messy state of the Nigerian judiciary. Otherwise, the British government would be complicit in the inhumane treatment the transferred prisoners are likely to suffer in the Nigerian prison system.

Something else: The Nigerian judiciary, as the Amnesty International, has been telling us since 2008 “fails to ensure that all inmates are tried within reasonable time; indeed, most inmates wait years for a trial. When inmates are convicted, most courts do not inform them of their right to appeal. Nor does the judiciary guarantee that all suspects are offered legal representation. Few of the courts take the necessary steps to end the use of evidence elicited as a result of torture. In breach of national and international laws, the judiciary does not guarantee fair trial standards even in the case of minors.”

And so when you take a critical look at both the Nigerian prison system and the once vaunted judiciary, you can’t but come away feeling betrayed and saddened and nauseous at what goes on in those places. In many penitentiaries, for instance, a good number of fellow Nigerians are treated far worse than rabid dogs; and many cells smell like dingy mortuary. There is a smell of death and apocalypse everywhere you look with many of the inmates losing their mind.

In the coming weeks and months, all eyes would be on the judiciary as it tackles high profile cases, including that of Mr. Charles Oyintombra Okah. Should one be confident that this time round, justice would prevail, or would the court look the other way as perversion reigns?

•To be concluded next week