The Centre for community law has instituted an action at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice seeking several declarations from the court regarding the seeming indiscriminate and unreasonable use of awaiting trial to remand accused persons in custody in Nigeria.
Relying on several international instruments, the Centre’s main arguments are that awaiting trial breaches the several fundamental rights of the detainees, principally the right to presumption of innocence, which it grossly breaches in respect of those detainees who spend longer time in custody than they would have spent had they been tried and convicted for the offence for which they were charged.
Highlighting the report recently released by Nigerian Correctional Service, termed “the Summary of Inmate Population by Convict and Awaiting Trial Persons as at 23rd December 2024 Total Inmate Population”, the Centre argues that the use of awaiting trial to detain accused persons who are entitled to bail is a drain on the resources of the Nation in two ways. The first is that the budgetary allocation, which is grossly inadequate in the first place, for the welfare of the inmate is a clear misappropriation of resources that should have been used for developmental purposes. The second is that the economy, and indeed the rest of the population, would be denied the contributions of the detainees to the economy during the period of incarceration and even when they are eventually released, as they may not ever recover from the trauma of incarceration for the rest of their live, especially where they were wrongly accused.
For context, Nigerian Correctional Service “Summary of Inmate Population by Convict and Awaiting Trial Persons as at 23rd December 2024 Total Inmate Population” was revealed that:
The total prison population is (Seventy Nine Thousand, Two Hundred and Thirty Seven (79,237) inmates;
Out of (a) above, convicted inmates are only twenty six thousand, seven hundred and eighteen (26,718) inmates;
Out of (a) above, awaiting trial inmates are a whopping Fifty Two Thousand, Five Hundred and Nineteen (52,519) inmates.
Going by (a) to (c) above, the percentage of convicted inmates is 34% while that of are awaiting trial is 66%.
In the court processes signed by Benjamin O Ojumah, Esq of Pristinus Solicitors, Benin City, the Centre seeks, among others, a declaration that the actions of the Defendant and its agents in incarcerating accused persons without trying them within a reasonable time is a violation of the treaty obligations of the Respondent. It also seeks a declaration that Nigeria is in violation of its duty to prevent torture and to provide good governance for the people who are deprived of essential services to the tune of money used to maintain, in prison custody, individuals who should not be in prison but being on bail should be contributing their quota to economy of the Nation, are incongruous to the treaty obligations of the respondent. This bears in mind that many of the awaiting trial inmates are eventually discharged and acquitted but sometimes after they have spent a longer time in prison than the length of custodial punishment prescribed for the offence for which they are remanded.
@centre for community law
