93% Of Nigerian Inmates Are State Offenders, 50% Don’t Need Jail- Minister 

The minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has revealed that 93 per cent of inmates in Nigeria’s custodial centres are state offenders, while only seven per cent are federal offenders, adding that about 50 per cent of those currently behind bars do not require incarceration.

The minister made the disclosure on Wednesday in Abuja at the Regional Conference on the Classification of Prisoners and the Use of Technology in Prisons in Africa, jointly organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the African Correctional Services Association (ACSA).

According to him, the federal government has taken deliberate steps to decongest correctional facilities by reviewing cases involving inmates imprisoned for minor offences.

“About 93 per cent of our inmates in Nigeria are state offenders. Only seven per cent are federal offenders. Of this 93 per cent, before this administration came on board, many were incarcerated for minor offences that did not warrant imprisonment,” Tunji-Ojo said.

He recalled that shortly after assuming office, he directed the Permanent Secretary of the ministry and the Controller-General of the Nigerian Correctional Service to compile data on inmates imprisoned over unpaid fines and compensation of less than N500,000.

“When I became minister, I asked for the records of people in correctional centres because of fines and compensation below N500,000. The figure came to over 4,000 inmates,” he said.

Describing the situation as economically irrational, the minister said the government was spending far more to keep such inmates in custody than the value of the fines they owed.

“I asked myself, what is the sense in this? The government spends more than 10 times the amount of those fines annually just to feed them. We cleared those cases and, in a single day, reduced the correctional population by five per cent,” he added.

Tunji-Ojo said the experience raises an important question for correctional authorities across Africa.

“The question is: Are our correctional centres rightfully overcrowded? If you examine the nature of many of these offences, you will realise that 30, 40 or even 50 per cent do not require incarceration,” he said.

The minister also disclosed that recidivism has dropped significantly under the current administration, falling from about 13,000 cases in 2023 to just 1,000 last year.

He attributed the decline to expanded access to education, vocational training and rehabilitation programmes within correctional facilities.

According to him, 62 inmates are currently pursuing postgraduate studies, 261 are enrolled in undergraduate programmes, while 1,125 are receiving formal education. He added that 18 National Open University of Nigeria study centres now operate within custodial facilities, with 9,582 inmates participating in vocational and non-formal education programmes.

Tunji-Ojo further said Nigeria has not recorded a single jailbreak or attack on any correctional facility in the last three years, attributing the achievement to improved technology, data management and inter-agency collaboration.

He cited the case of an escaped inmate who was rearrested after attempting to obtain a Nigerian passport.

“As soon as he submitted his biometric data at the Nigeria Immigration Service for passport processing, the system immediately flagged him as an escaped inmate. Immigration alerted the Correctional Service, and he was arrested on the spot,” he said.

Earlier, the Controller-general of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Sylvester Ndidi Nwakuche, said the country had continued to modernise its correctional system through reforms driven by the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, 2019.

He said effective prisoner classification had become a critical tool for assessing inmate risk, protecting vulnerable prisoners, improving resource allocation and delivering targeted rehabilitation programmes.

Nwakuche added that the deployment of technology would strengthen record management, improve information sharing and enhance accountability across correctional institutions.

“No single correctional service has all the answers to today’s security and rehabilitation challenges. This conference provides an opportunity to exchange ideas, share practical experiences and collectively develop solutions that will strengthen correc

tional systems across Africa,” he said.