Nigeria's Vice
President, Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday, accused the Nigerian Police
Force and judges for keeping suspects in prison custody longer than is legally
permissible without trial. The Vice President made the accusation during the
opening ceremony of the two-day Stakeholders’ Summit organized by the Lagos
State Ministry of Justice, where he was represented by Mr. Abubakar Malami
(SAN), Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
At the summit, holding at Eko
Convention Centre, Eko Hotels in Lagos, the Vice President said suspects are
kept in prison custody for as long as three years without being charged to
court. The situation, he explained, has left over 47,000 suspects still
awaiting trial in prisons across the country.
“As at 2017, we have 47,229
"unsentenced" detainees awaiting trial out of a total prison
population of 67,586. It may interest you to know that Lagos State has the
highest number of unsentenced detainees in Nigeria, according to a
recent statistic released by the National Bureau of Statistics and
Nigerian Prison Service released in 2015,” said the Vice President.
He noted that 85.9 percent of the
Lagos State prison population is made up of yet-to-be-charged detainees, adding
that the time spent in detention is dependent on the length of
proceedings, which are usually extended because of incessant adjournment or
lack of diligence by investigators.
As solutions to lengthy prison custody
periods, the Vice President called on the judiciary to embrace a daily
trial system and sanction lawyers, who deliberately delay proceedings with the
intention of stalling trial. He urged the judges and other relevant
stakeholders in justice administration to diligently discharge their
duties.
“If we can agree that these problems
are against our collective interests as practitioners and stakeholders, then we
must make a firm commitment to tackle the problems by changing our attitude and
standing up for what is right,” he said.
The Vice President, who is a
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, also accused some judges of sitting for
less than three and half hours.
“They will not sit on
time and before 3:30pm; they would rise. Such behavior from judges must
stop” he said.
Mr. Osinbajo commended Lagos
State for the progress made by its judicial system, saying the summit
represents an indication of commitment towards building a world class
judiciary.
Another speaker at the summit,
Mr. Olawale Fapohunda, Managing Partner, Legal Resources Consortium,
noted that Lagos State prisons are overcrowded.
According to Fapohunda, Ikoyi
Prison has a capacity of 800 but holds 2,299
inmates. Badagry Prison, he noted, has a capacity of 130, but holds
375 inmates, while Kirikiri Medium Prison, built to accommodate 1,700
inmates, now holds 2,735.
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