YET ANOTHER VIOLENT JAILBREAK
There is need to overhaul the country’s criminal justice system
The attack on the personnel of the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS) which led to the escape of 16 inmates at the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Keffi, Nasarawa State, on Tuesday is worrisome. Although seven of the fleeing inmates have reportedly been recaptured, five personnel of the centre sustained varying degrees of injury.
While we commiserate with the injured personnel, the many jailbreaks of recent years reinforce the argument that the Nigerian prisons are in dire need of serious decongestion. Unfortunately, all the efforts aimed at ameliorating the plight of Awaiting Trial Inmates who populate most prisons would come to naught without a judicial reform to overhaul the country’s criminal justice system. If crime investigation continues to drag on endlessly, if suspects are detained indefinitely in custody or dumped in prisons on trumped-up charges, if court trials are stalled by endless adjournments at the instance of the prosecution for lack of vital evidence, the prisons will continue to experience widespread violence.
The horrific conditions prevailing in most of these ‘correctional’ facilities degrade humanity such that after spending long jail terms, inmates come out as hardened criminals. Finding themselves in the hell hole without speedy trials, many are so desperate to do anything to regain their freedom. That largely accounts for the jailbreaks. Perhaps no other prison facility in the country has witnessed the worrying trend than the Koton Karfe Custodial Centre in Kogi State that was built in 1934. Within the past decade alone, the medium security custodial centre has experienced four separate jailbreaks, with hundreds of inmates spilling into the streets, and endangering public safety. In March this year, 12 inmates of the centre strangulated one of the officers on duty, overpowered others, and fled into the night via a collapsed portion of a window.
But the problem is not limited to Koton Karfe. Between 2015 and 2022, there were about 15 jailbreaks, resulting in over 7,000 escapes. Therefore, it is important to review the conditions in our prisons that encourage such morbid desperation. From Abakaliki to Bauchi, Sagamu to Owerri, none of the custodial centres seems secure. During the EndSARS protests in 2020, two prison facilities were attacked in Edo State and about 2000 inmates escaped. More than half the numbers are still at large. But perhaps the most embarrassing was the attack on Kuje Custodial Centre in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 2022 by about 300 men, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices. They freed about 600 inmates, including many top Boko Haram commanders held in the facility.
Ordinarily, these facilities are supposed to be well fortified structures. But they are not. Yet, what these frequent jailbreaks reflect is the lack of attention to the prison system in general and its infrastructure in particular. Most of them were built either during the colonial era or during the First Republic and were designed for smaller population of inmates and a different type of criminals. This may be the time to try innovative ideas to keep bad people out of circulation and perhaps make them better citizens when they return to the larger society.
Earlier this year, President Bola Tinubu approved the relocation of 29 correctional centres, including those in Suleja and Ikoyi, to address issues of security and infrastructural deficiencies. The Minister of the Interior, Tunji-Ojo, said the move would ensure modernised correctional systems that support both officers and inmates. The Keffi jailbreak has proved that nothing has changed.
