Recent figures convey the impression that Nigeria is safer than Switzerland, reputed to be the safest country in the world. With a population of eight million, Switzerland has about 10,000 persons in jail.
Ibrahim (middle) and his officers
Zakari Ibrahim, Prisons Controller General, served up the statistics that only 56,620 Nigerians are in prison across the country, in a population of about 170 million.
Of the number incarcerated, 39,034 are awaiting trial. Meaning, only 17,586 are serving time.
At face value, the figure supplied by Ibrahim suggests that crime density in Switzerland is four times higher than in Nigeria.
But even he is not deceived.
“With a population of 167 million, locking 50,000 people in custody makes Nigeria the lowest per capita prison population in the world. And what this means is that Nigeria has the lowest crime rate in the world.
“But you and I know that the reason we have this low number of prisoners, with many of them awaiting trial, is that Nigeria has a very weak, decadent criminal justice system.
“Experts on the subject, both from within and outside the country, are in agreement that the poor funding of the criminal justice system has led to the low performance of the criminal justice institution,” he clarified in a lecture at Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State.
Abdulazeez Ibrahim, a lawyer, is more specific in laying the blame of why Nigeria has the lowest per capita prison population amid insecurity.
“Have you tried to look at our law enforcement agencies? Are they enforcing the laws properly? Are law enforcement agencies allowed to do their work properly? These are just the questions.
“For some people, because they know somebody who is rich, they may be let off the hook for serious crimes. It is just about our law enforcement. In some countries, no matter how big you are, you face the wrath of the law,” he said.
But Abdulazeez Ibrahim exonerated the judiciary for the poor justice administration.
“All of them (critics) always want to punch the judiciary. This is not true. Sometimes people bring frivolous evidence to court, and how do you expect a judge to convict on that.”
In his view, the problem is located within law enforcement, shared by the police, the Road Safety Corps, Immigration, Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Civil Defence Corps.
“It is an indictment on all of them. When a big man commits offence, he is let off the hook while the poor suffer the full wrath of the law. Most of these former governors should be serving jail terms if we really have effective law enforcement agencies,” he said.
For Ebongabasi Ekpe-Juda, a sociologist and security consultant, the figure from the prisons does not present an accurate picture, because “the statistics give the impression that Nigeria is a country with very low crime density. You and I living in the country know that that is not true.”
Because of the faulty prison system few people are in prison even though the crime rate is high, he argued.
He added: “Unfortunately, the government in the past 50 years has done nothing to increase the prison yards in Nigeria. Also, the welfare of the warders is so poor. I’m saying this from insider knowledge.
“In the colonial days what used to happen was that wherever there was a police station, there would be a prison close by so that when people were arrested, taken to court, they were sent to prison. They were not supposed to stay in the police custody.”
In the United States, Ekpe-Juda explained, once someone is arrested by the police he is taken straight to jail, and there are so many jails, so no one is detained for a long time in police station.
But, in Lagos for instance, with a population of over 18 million, there are only two prisons; in Ikoyi and Kirikiri.
“If the government hasbeen proactive, there would have been prison yards in so many locations such that once you commit a crime, you are taken to prison. That will serve as deterrent to crime,” he counselled.
“You see the chief judge of a state going round to release some prisoners because the prisons are congested. And the capital reason is our justice system.
“A person is arrested for pickpocketing and it takes the court four, five years to convict while he languishes in the prison yard as awaiting trial.
“The annoying part is that the prison yard is supposed to be a reformative place. But when a man stays in prison for a minor crime that should not take him three months’ sentence, he sits down there and learns even the hard things and comes out to be a hardened criminal than a reformed person.
“That is the sorry state of the nation which reflects in all aspect of our society.”
