A working group on the legal status of inmates in correctional centres in the country set up by the Federal Government, on Wednesday, submitted its report to the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, decrying the terrible and unbearable conditions faced by inmates at the Correctional Centers across the country.
The facilitator of the working group, Mr Olawale Fapohunda, SAN, revealed that most inmates are languishing in prisons due to a lack of legal representation and the inability of the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria to cope with the huge number of cases.
Fapohunda said while auditing the correctional centres, the group interfaced with categories of inmates and found their conditions unpalatable.
According to him, in one custodial centre, the working group discovered at least seven inmates remanded for offences relating to terrorism who have been on remand for upwards of 10 years from the date of detention and added that the group was unable to find any record that showed that they were brought before any court since the date of their detention.
Besides the lack of legal representation, Fapohunda said most of the inmates are suffering from ailments that the prison authorities could not bear the cost of medication.
He therefore pleaded with the AGF and the Federal Government to come to the rescue of the Nigerian Correctional Centers and their inmates with a view to alleviating their poor conditions.
Fapohunda, a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Ekiti state, asked the AGF to convene an emergency meeting of the Body of Attorneys-General to achieve a coordinated response between Federal and State Governments on the legal status of all inmates including but not limited to those who have overstayed without trial.
He noted that the mandate of the working group was mainly to focus on the legal status of Section 35 inmates (inmates that have been kept in detention for a longer period than the maximum period of imprisonment prescribed for the offence) and under this heading, the working group identified two distinct categories of inmates.
“It would have been odd in the extreme if the working group had simply focused on the status of Section 35 inmates and ignored the plight of other inmates deserving urgent attention.
“There were those inmates in remand for non-capital offences who, after being arraigned, their cases were caught up by the slow judicial process and would require the active intervention of the State Ministries of Justice. The second category was those inmates remanded for capital offences, including terrorism.
“This category of inmates includes those without legal representation. Indeed, several inmates continue to be kept in detention for periods longer than the maximum period of imprisonment prescribed for the offence because they do not have legal representation.
“The working group found an alarming high number of inmates in the custodial centers under review were without legal representation. The AGF is invited to note that, although the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria is mandated to provide free legal services to inmates without legal representation, it is presently under-resourced and thus barely able to make a significant difference,” he said.
In his remarks after the receipt of the report, the AGF and Minister of Justice disclosed that the working group was constituted as part of efforts to ensure access to justice and ensure that persons are not unduly detained in custodial centres.
According to Fagbemi, the move is in line with the renewed hope agenda of the administration of President Bola Tinubu and in line with the obligations under various national and international instruments, including the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and other human rights instruments to which Nigeria is a party.
“This mandate of the working group is crucial to achieving the standards we have set for ourselves in our effort to reform our criminal justice system. The vision of Mr President is for a criminal justice system that maintains law and order, deters crime, punishes offenders, while at the same time strives to rehabilitate those offenders in order to facilitate their recovery and reintegration into society,” he said.
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