It was a surprise Christmas package for 15 inmates of Suleja Correctional Service Centre when a team of female lawyers in collaboration with other like-minded organisations facilitated their celebrating the yuletide with their families a few weeks ago.
The Correctional Centres Visitation Committee of International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) Abuja branch in partnership with the Al Muhibbah Foundation, the NBA Abuja, Human Rights Committee, and La Chapelle Centre for Rights of Children and Victims of Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes, secured the inmates’ release.
The 15 inmates were held for their inability to pay fines of various amounts despite having been discharged by the courts. The team also made provision for food and essential welfare items for female inmates, amongst who were two nursing mothers and their babies (four and nine months old respectively).
Authorities at the Correctional Centre said one of the biggest challenges they face is decongestion. A senior official who addressed the contingent disclosed that they often have difficulties getting judges and magistrates to sign off on the Release Order which would secure the release of inmates that have had their fines paid but have compensation amounts outstanding against them. He explained that in spite of the recent directive of the Chief Judge(CJ) that the claims of such outstanding compensation be pursued in civil suits, most Judges remain unwilling to sign off the Release Order until such compensations are fully offset thereby lengthening the amount of time such inmates spend in custody.
In her comments, the Chairperson of the Correctional Services Centres Committee of FIDA Abuja, Lady Ngozi Okogbue, expressing her gratitude to the collaborators both old and new, explained that a major mandate of her Committee was the regular visitation to these Correctional Services Centres where it interacts with the inmates through the mounting of legal clinics in order to determine their current areas of need, whether it be the payment of fines, payment of compensation where possible, or to determine what legal aid necessary to be provided the inmates especially in the case of pending appeals. The Committee, she added also provides some necessaries especially for the female inmates. She therefore encouraged as much collaboration as possible with willing and interested collaborators.
In her response, Chairperson of FIDA Abuja, Mrs. Rachael Adejo-Andrew pledged to draw the Chief Judge’s attention to the matter during their next interaction with him on Prison Decongestion issues.
Prison congestion is one challenge that has for long bedeviled the country. A former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof. Anselm Chidi Odinkalu recently disclosed that the courts are congested: with about 117,000 pending cases at the Federal High Court alone, estimated tens of thousands at the Appeal court, and over 30,000 at the Supreme Court. Court cases, including commercial disputes can last for decades.
As the population balloons, it is expected that the number of pending cases under the current system will continue to multiply. The prisons are overcrowded. Odinkalu estimates, using case study of federal prisons in Imo state that the congestion rate is 170% and with 86% of prison inmates awaiting trial. Most prisoners end up serving terms higher than would have been the case if convicted.
Meanwhile, judges in Nigeria are grossly overworked and underpaid. According to the former Rights Commission’s Chair, “Nigeria’s Supreme Court is probably the only one in the world where the justices sit every day, and yet pending cases keep mounting in thousands. As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied.”