The Investigative Panel on corruption, abuse of power, torture, and inhumane treatment in the Nigerian correctional service ended its 10-day public sitting in Abuja on Friday.
Friday’s sitting opened the door to the public on issues of young persons, women, and persons with disability held in correction centers across Nigeria.
The comment by the secretary of the panel, Dr. Uju Agomoh, reflected the disposition of the panel and the need for urgent and collective action.
But why does there seem to be an emergency in the correctional centers in Nigeria? The first issue is that young offenders under the age of 18 are brought into adult correctional centers, where they are abused, go through the dehumanizing experience of congested and putrid prison cells, and are initiated into hardened behavior.
The law on who should be in the correctional centers is clear. Section 35 of the Correctional Service Act of 2019 provides that underage offenders should be housed in Borstal homes, separate facilities from adult inmates.
At Friday’s sitting, the panel was told that the juvenile Borstal homes are only in the letters of the law but not provided in fact.
The panel viewed the situation as not just a breach of the law but a dent in the image and reputation of Nigeria on how it treats the inmates of its correctional centers.
Again, how do the juveniles get into the correctional centers against the provision of the law? Fingers were pointed in two directions, the police and the magistrate courts.
Female offenders seem to get a more respectable deal in the correctional centers. At least that was the impression created by the Nigerian correctional services.
All the same, the panel thought that though tolerable, the situation was not good enough. For instance, women should not be housed in the same facility, no matter if they are kept in separate sections. They should have an independent facility altogether. Then came the issue of inmates with disabilities and this ranged from those with mental illness, the visually impaired, and those physically disabled.
The fact that those inmates are dumped together in the same facilities without consideration for their challenges throws up the need for reform in Nigerian correctional centers.