Awaiting Trial Inmates Are Over 65% In Nigeria – NBA President

The President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Adam Osigwe, has ascribed the congestion in the correctional centres across the country to the high number of inmates awaiting trials.

Osigwe, who said 65 per cent of inmates are awaiting trials, expressed worry over the conditions of the inmates awaiting trials and the long time it usually takes to conclude their cases.

The NBA President stated this while addressing journalists after the National Executive Council (NEC) association meeting at the Dome, Alagbaka, Akure, Ondo State capital, saying, “Well, I cannot speak about condemned criminals. You cannot force a state to execute them.

“We should focus on pre-trial detainees, people in court awaiting trials. They make up over 65 per cent of the prison population. Those condemned criminals, as you call them, who are already sentenced. They’ve had their day in court.

In expressing worry over those who are remanded in prison facilities without having their cases tried or their case taking an intolerable length of time to conclude, Osigwe hinted, “We have mandated our Human Rights Committee to work with the Chief Judges of the states to ensure that they do prison visits, and also to give a directive to all magistrates that if you give a remand order, you must give a return date for a review, and that if the prosecution, Ministry of Justice, fails to file a charge, that they should order the release of such persons so that people do not spend time in prison detention without being charged to court.”

“And also to ensure that the courts, in line with provisions of the Police Act and the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, will visit detention facilities, whether of the police, of the army, of the DSS, of the NDLEA to check the length of time people have been detained there, to order that they be released on bail, to order that they charge them to court, or release them entirely.

“So, the bar is getting this engagement to ensure that people who have no reason to be in detention are released and that people do not spend a long time in detention without a charge being filed against them.

“So, we are doing advocacy, and we are engaging to ensure that we comply with the provisions of the law to avoid this ugly situation being the dominant thing, being the reason rather than why people are in various detention facilities.”

On the incidence of conflicting judgements, the NBA President said: “We have set up a committee called the Adjudicative Review Committee, which will look at some of these contradictory judgments, point out the conflicts, and also try to identify where the courts got it wrong and suggest the position that best reflects the position of the law.

“And also in our engagement with judges, we also point them out, and we’re encouraging academics and lawyers to write reviews of such judgments and publish them, to draw attention to them, and that lawyers also should, in presenting arguments before the court, not confuse them by failing to bring to their attention the existence of the authority, or make them believe that there has not been any previous decision on the matter.

“So where a previous decision exists, to bring such a decision to the court’s attention, the court will be better guided in concluding.

Okay, the congestion of correctional facilities, what is the bar doing? Especially, sir, that there are a lot of condemned criminals.”