The rights of Nigerian prisoners are "systematically violated," Amnesty International, a leading human rights advocacy organization, argues in a scathing report on the country's criminal justice system.
The report, entitled "Nigeria: Prisoners' rights systemically flouted," found that at least 65 percent of prison inmates have never been convicted of any crime. One 25-year-old interviewed by Amnesty has spent more than one-third of his life in prison awaiting trial.
"Some [inmates] could end up spending the rest of their lives behind bars in appalling conditions without ever having been convicted of a crime – sometimes simply due to their case files having been lost by the police," said Aster van Kregten, Amnesty's Nigeria researcher, at a press conference in Abuja.
The report is based on hundreds of interviews and testimonies from inmates, prison officers and other stakeholders in the legal process.
According to Amnesty, many inmates are not suspected of committing a crime but land in prison in place of a family member the police could not locate or because of mental illness. A prison officer told Amnesty of a woman who was thrown in prison "because her son fought with someone" and "they could not get him." Another inmate was dropped off at a prison by her brother who claimed her family could not cope with her mental illness; she spent three years in awful conditions before being released to a hospital.
"When a state arrests or imprisons someone solely because they are a relative of a suspect or because they suffer from mental illness, they are violating that person's right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention – a right guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," said van Kregten.
The slow wheels of justice sputter even more slowly due to lack of legal representation. Amnesty found that only one in seven awaiting trial prisoners has access to a private lawyer, and the country has only 91 legal aid officers. Amnesty says many poor people have no legal representation, leaving them "forgotten" in the justice system.
And the poor often suffer in other ways. Prison staff often demand money for allowing prisoners to go to the hospital, receive visitors or contact their families. Wealthy inmates can buy privileges, such as an opportunity to use a mobile phone.
Nigerian prisons also are severely overcrowded because the number of prisoners awaiting trial. One prison was at 250 percent of its capacity when Amnesty visited it. Many inmates have to share beds and cell space.
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Amnesty says overcrowding is one of many factors that create seriously damaging mental and physical health conditions in Nigerian prisons. Other factors include lack of electricity, water and modern drainage systems. Four of every five Nigerian prisons were built before 1950, and many have not been renovated.
Torture is also used widely by police to extract confessions, Amnesty found. One inmate, who still showed the marks of torture during his interview, told Amnesty that he was beaten many times over a nine-day period: "The first time there were four police officers who beat me, the second time three, the third time five, and the fourth time seven. They beat me with a stick and asked why I took the motorcycle. After three, four, or five minutes of this, I would be unconscious."
The Nigerian government has frequently set up committee to investigate reports of widespread human rights abuses in its criminal justice system and to recommend reforms.
Just last month, the Ministry of the Interior announced that a committee would be set to make sure the criminal justice system met international standards. The Ministry of the Interior also responded to the Amnesty report, stating, "The Nigerian government is not unaware of most of the observations... The various ongoing reform initiatives are intended to provide short, medium and long-term solutions to most of the nagging problems."
Amnesty, however, concluded that "Nigeria does not take seriously its responsibility towards its citizens in prison."
