‘Many inmates held over N1,500 fines’

How do you feel when you meet an inmate who ought not to be in prison? Despite the period of time I have worked with women in prison, I have never gotten used to the adrenaline that runs in me and the tears that flow from my eyes when I see a female in prison, […]

How do you feel when you meet an inmate who ought not to be in prison?
Despite the period of time I have worked with women in prison, I have never gotten used to the adrenaline that runs in me and the tears that flow from my eyes when I see a female in prison, especially when the story is so pathetic and unjust.

Can you put a figure to the number of female inmates in the prisons?
It is a ratio of 70:30 of male and female inmates. That is how high the figure is. And the population is growing not because the crime rate is growing but due to the rise in impunity in the law enforcement which has been left to continue. From 2009 to date we have had 250 discharged and acquitted female inmates.

There have been calls for reforms in the criminal justice system. What approach would you recommend?
I think it is high time. We all have a lot of suggestions on reforming the criminal justice system and about decongesting the prisons. From the research I have done over the years, I think there is need for us to introduce the probation system. This will help us correct most of the wrongs people have committed. It helps society separate those it is angry at and those it is afraid of (the hardened criminals). We have continually put these people together and it has not augured well for us. Each time we see people we are afraid of could influence those we are angry at, there is need for us to introduce the probation system. Even government can generate money from the probation system because we can subject those on this system to community service. It will save the government costs. When you have it, you don’t have to lock them in prison but you supervise them from outside.

There is the argument that the country’s huge undocumented population and the challenges of funding are militating against the implementation of the probation system even though it is captured in the ACJA?
From my experience in the United States, they have introduced technology wherein the person under probation wears anklet that will track them. It is just like the mobile phones we carry about. These are systems that as soon as the person tampers with it it is known. Nigerians I know are even more disciplined. I don’t see any Nigerians trying to warp the technology and get into prison. The benefits are immense, such that the prison becomes a place for convicted felons only and not for awaiting trials. The law says that an accused person is innocent until proved guilty.

There has been the position that Nigeria has not funded the system well. How do you think this programme can be funded?
That is actually what makes it so difficult because we are not trying to convince the government away from putting so much money in the prisons at the expense of other areas. I think we should come from human rights, equity and good conscience. It is imperative that we build a good society at every sector because we do not know how the prison population is growing, and it may soon be affecting every family. If we continue to allow arbitrary actions in the criminal justice system and people getting picked up, it may be someone’s relative tomorrow.

Do you think fewer inmates will reduce incidents of jail breaks in the country?
I think it will. The reason is that people involved in jailbreaks have actually resigned to fate. To them it is ‘either I break out of jail or I die trying.’ There is nothing holding them back to say they want to serve this term and go away. In the United States, $65 is spent every day for a prisoner, and to put someone on probation costs $12 every day. They include a lot of incentives for people who supervise the offenders – the probation officers. And they do a lot of therapy for them because most of them have substance abuse issues. That is the negative side of the freedom most of these Americans enjoy. In Nigeria, we don’t have high substance abuse in prison, but we have drug barons in prison.

More specifically, what interventions have you done in this area?
The organisation was birthed in 2009 and we started the initiative in 2010 after we got the support and partnership of the Nigerian Prisons Service. We first started with the prisons in Suleja where you have the female prison. We were able to reach out to the Kirikiri Prisons in Lagos; then Owerri, and Calabar and that was how we started spreading. Because of the relationship we have with the Nigerian Prisons they contact us most times when they see issues that need help.

What kind of help do they invite you for?
It is both legal and financial help. Most of the financial help we give is when people have bail conditions and they are very paltry sums. I have seen a paltry sum of N2000 and somebody could not pay. In Suleja Prison a person was in prison for N1,500 over an environmental offence. She had already spent seven months before our intervention.
Our society sees everybody in prison as a criminal. A lot of people hardly go to prison to offer help apart from the few charities and churches that go there with food items and walk away. They don’t even listen to the stories. When we go, sometimes we pay bail fines of N1,500, N2,000 and N3,000. We have never had a bail sum that is up to N10, 000. The number of poor inmates is high because the people who cannot afford legal services are the poor. The rich man is given a fine, he pays and walks away.
I had a very touching case of a woman aged 87 in Imo State who was held for three years after the police charged her for the murder of her step-son. This was even after autopsy proved that it was a case of suicide. She was discharged and acquitted after we came into the case.

Do these people institute cases against the police?
They are poor people who cannot even afford legal service. They are even grateful for their freedom and not even suing. What we do is try to rehabilitate them and put them through therapy.

How do you fund the programme?
Funding has been an issue. But we have a lot of volunteers and we pay them working allowance. We have people who donate to the cause and I plough income from my law firm into the programme. We are involved in corporate practice.

How do you cope with nursing mothers in prison?
Their case is pathetic because most times, we discover that as at the time they came to prison they were actually not pregnant. Most of them were raped between their time in the police stations and the prisons.  It is a very serious case. You find out that these children are given birth in prison and also become prisoners because that is their first home. We don’t have efficient foster care and social welfare in the country. We don’t have juvenile prisons or remand homes.