Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has deplored the state of Nigerian prisons, saying that instead of reforming inmates, they were turning them to animals.
He said that apart from being overcrowded, the facilities were in terrible state and unfit for human habitation.
As a way out of the horrible situation, Osinbajo called for support for the Federal Government to chase the face of the prisons.
He said that the Port Harcourt Prison, originally designed by the British colonial masters to accommodate 800 prisoners, now harbours 5,000 inmates.
Osinbajo made the revelation at the public presentation of three volumes of prison survey report (PSR) packaged by the Nigerian Prison Service (NPS) and the Prisoners Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA) at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja.
Represented at the occasion by the Minister of Interior, Lt-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (rtd), the Vice President said that the situation calls for concern as the Federal Government could not go it alone in the administration of Criminal Justice System in Nigeria.
The Vice President said that most of the colonial prisons built over 100 years ago across the country are turning their inmates into animals due to their deplorable and gory conditions.
According to PRNigeria, an online news medium, Osinbajo said that for a long time the Nigerian Prison were neglected by successive governments and thereby making their reformatory mandates to be defeated.
On the Port Harcourt Prison with over 5,000 inmates, he noted with regret that 3,700 inmates are awaiting trial and have been dumped in the prison for over five years.
To remedy the situation, Osinbajo said that President Muhammadu Buhari had picked up the challenge with the approval for construction of 3,000 capacity prison in each of the six geopolitical zones of the country.
He further hinted that President Buhari had procured vehicles to convey inmates from prisons to courts to enable them stand for trial without hindrances..
Osinbajo therefore appealed to state governments to support the Federal Government in the administration of the Prison Act which, he said, is aimed at getting prisons rehabilitated and ensuring good welfare for the inmates so as to make them responsible citizens at the end of their incarceration.
He said that Public Prosecution Units in criminal cases should be beefed up to stop undue delay of inmates and charged the police to look into their skills in their investigation, stressing that a�?if investigation is poor, prosecution will also be poor.a�?
The Comptroller-General of Prisons, Ahmed Jaafaru, said that lack of data on inmates over the years was responsible for the congestion of prison. He thanked the Presidency for unprecedented intervention and the National Assembly for improvement in budgetary allocations to the Nigerian Prison Service (NPS).
The Chairman of the Board of PRAWA, Chief Gabriel Tobi, described the Survey Report presentation as a momentous occasion because the issue of over-crowding of the prisons would be urgently looked into when the reports are being implemented.
The Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Justice Ishaq Bello, said that Nigerian prisons failed in the reformatory mandates issued out during their establishment and called on the appropriate authorities to give legal aid to inmates.
Nigerian prisons turning inmates to animals – Osinbajo
