It has been revealed that Lagos State has the highest number of
prisoners in Nigeria, 7,396 out of the national total of 68,686. The
state, which is the commercial hub of Nigeria also leads in prisons
congestion.
According to Vanguard, it has a capacity for 3,927 prisoners,
indicating that it is almost 100 per cent overfilled, a trend that
President Muhammadu Buhari has called a national scandal.
According to a new data released by the National Bureau of
Statistics today, Lagos is closely followed by Rivers and Kano States
with 4,424 and 4,183 prison inmates population.
Kano can conveniently accommodate just 2,116 prisoners. Rivers has
one of the worst prisoner congestion ratio as it can take only 1,354,
compared to the 4,424 prisoners it accommodates at present. Bayelsa and
Ekiti states have the lowest numbers of prisoners, with 444 and 585 as
at last year.
Even then the two states also failed to buck the trend as their cells can accommodate only 200 and 400 prisoners respectively.
The NBS Prison Statistics catalogued Prison Population by Total
Detainees, Prison Capacity and Number of Un-sentenced Detainees by State
and Year and Prison Inmate Population by Gender from 2011 to 2016.
The study showed a rise in prison population from 65,030 in 2015 to
68,686 last year. It also showed a rise in over-population of the
prisons. In 2015, the prisons capacity was 49,965. But the prisoners
were 65,033. In 2016, the capacity rose to 50,803, as the inmates also
increased to 68,686.
More revealing is the gender skewness of the population: There are far more men in prisons than women.
While male inmates last year were 67,329, the women were 1,357. The
gender ratio in 2015 was similar, 63,668 to 1,357. In terms of the
beliefs of the inmates, there were more muslims kept in jail between
2015 and 2016, more than Christians. NBS data shows that 59,940
Christians were incarcerated in the two year period, in contrast with
71,402 muslims.
The number of traditionalists, atheists and others was 11,506. On 6
October, President Muhammadu Buhari expressed concern over the state of
the nation’s prisons, noting that it is a national scandal that many
prisons are overcrowded by 90 per cent.
He spoke when he hosted a delegation of the judicial arm of
government led by the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Walter
Onnoghen, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
“We need a new approach to prison congestion. It is a national scandal that many prisons are overcrowded by 90 per cent, ” he said.
He stressed the need to put in place urgent new measures to speedily decongest the prisons across the country.
He stated that the call had become imperative not only in the
interest of justice but to save the cost of prisons’ maintenance and
boost the welfare of prisoners.
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