Horrible: 42,000 nigerians in jail: 34,000 await trial in prisons – Interior Minister

Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro met recently with some media organizations during which he explained his ministry’s efforts to give the prisons a turn-around. The former academic who also spoke on politics in his home-state and what he described as vicious campaigns against him, revealed that 34,000 of the 42,000 inmates in Nigerian prisons, are awaiting trial and a good percentage of them have been incarcerated for at least five years.

Excerpts.

 My focus in the ministry

It has not been easy managing the ministry, I must tell you. You know a federal ministry has high obligation and it takes skill to handle. In a situation where one manages not just the ministry but also agencies under it, one faces a different task altogether.

In my ministry for instance, you coordinate the Prisons, Immigration, the Civil Defence and some others and it is not always easy.

But with my background in public service as a lecturer and administrator for years, and holding political office, there is some advantage because one already had ideas of what one wants and how to make the sector better and functional.

We have been working in line with the president’s transformation agenda to  ensure that the ministry is repositioned. We started with the update and enhancement of the human resource base. There is an acceptable standard to which workers must adapt; so we have embarked on training and improvement of workers because they have to be equipped to give their best. Public service has changed over the years and we can’t be left behind as part of  a world that targets progress.

In Immigration, we saw it compelling and vital to introduce the e-passport that is the trend all over the world. The introduction made it easier to obtain passports without the stress people went through in the past.

Another area of utmost concern has been the prison. Our prisons are not worth the name. Everybody talks of the need to decongest the prisons but not much had been achieved. So we made it a duty to embark on real decongestion and also the improvement of the facilities.

Prisoners now learn trades and skills so that when they leave the prisons, they will be fully and gainfully reintegrated into the society as better citizens. I have a wear I bought at the Onitsha Prisons that was sewn by a prisoner. It is so well designed that anybody will happily buy it. That is the type of society we want to achieve; where even ex-convicts and prisoners would be contributors to the economy and empowered.

Congestion in prisons

The congestion still remains a big headache. There are 42,000 inmates in Nigerian prisons, and 34,000 of them are awaiting trial inmates (ATI). To solve this problem would mean a total overhaul and re-planning of the criminal justice administration system. I must state that the job of decongesting the prisons vested in the Justice Ministry has not been really effective.

Need to re-jig criminal justice system

There should be a redesigning to involve the prisons and the supervising ministry and the police and civil society organisations.

All over the nation, I can say that every day, an average of 1000 more Nigerians are dumped in various prisons and remain there without trial. There are those that have been there for about three years or more without being taken to court for once.

That is not the way to manage a society.  Some of them have been in detention for much longer than the sentence they would have got on conviction, and I can tell you that the law enforcement system has not helped matters.

How fair is it that the police would arrest people, dump them in prisons without an effort to prosecute them, and how can we heal the system with such a practice? It is almost impossible.

Special court for decongestion

I think we really need a special court to handle decongestion of prisons.

Last week, I got a report that the Lagos State task force in liaison with the police arrested 55 women said to be prostitutes and dumped them in Ikoyi Prisons. Notwithstanding that the prisons is federal establishment, states in the enforcement of their laws send arrested persons there and abandon them without prosecution or contributing to their upkeep.

So we are right now working on integrated reforms with allied bodies and agencies to make sure the congestion is tackled, and that a post-prison term plan is made ready for inmates.

Government didn’t ask Britain to build prisons

I want to point out that Nigeria never solicited the aid of Britain to build a prison here. What the government of Britain does in that direction is just part of its foreign aid agenda. I think their concern is the number of Nigerians in their prisons. There are 400 Nigerians in UK prisons and just one Briton in Nigerian prison. So, since they felt these Nigerian prisoners could be sent back home to serve their term and with the knowledge that the nation’s prisons didn’t meet the UN humanitarian standard, they decided to take that step.

 Nigerians in foreign prisons

I have to be frank with you that the exact number is not specific. You know it is not a stable factor because almost everyday, people are sentenced and put in jail in one country or the other and you need not be told that Nigerians live almost in every country of the world in large numbers.

 Repatriation of Nigerian prisoners

That is a good idea, but the Prisons Act that is in force does not compel a prisoner to accept transfer. So, coming back to serve is purely voluntary.

However, we are seriously working on conclusion of plans to build six model prisons in all the geo-political zones that would meet world standard as the first step to give human face to our prison system. After the first six, the rest would be upgraded and made better in addition to what we have been doing so far.

Ibori not coming to serve term in Nigeria

Not at all. He did not apply for such transfer. That much I know.

 Employment racket in agencies under me

I am fully aware. It will be a big lie to say I didn’t know of it. I get information of such things especially the Civil Defence. I know so many people parade themselves as employment and recruitment agencies. I have specific examples of people who were caught in the past and are facing prosecution. There is a particular one that impersonated the First Lady and purported to operate as recruitment agent for the Civil Defence. We set a trap for her and she was apprehended and handed over the police. I am sure she is facing trial.

There is another case where somebody defrauded people with the promise of securing them jobs. We are working to trap the person. It got so bad that last week, I directed the Permanent Secretary of the ministry to initiate a process of automation of all job openings in the ministry and agencies under it. The automation will make it impossible for any fraudster to manipulate because when there is job opening, it will be on the website and whoever doesn’t apply through that platform will automatically know he or she is dealing with fakes and scammers.

Alleged indictment for gun running

Yes, I am fully aware. I read it and I heard also that the State Security Service (SSS) and the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) wrote Mr President on that. But as we speak, I have not been summoned by either Mr President, the SSS or the NSA.

Let me give you the history of the allegation. It is actually not new. It is an old fad that is revived whenever the authors feel they have need for it. That need is politics.

Local government election will soon hold in my state and they have the need to revive their old calumny.

Why they are after me

The issue is that my political profile is rising steadily, and I think that is God’s doing. Why our people have refused to embrace the politics of persuasion rather than coercion is what still baffles me. They say I have plans to replace the Senate President in 2015. And I ask, is it automatic that if I become a senator, I must also become the senate president?

They should also tell me if I am God that plans, executes and manages tomorrow.

Yes, we are politicians and we have dreams, but I have never played the politics of desperation.

Some others say I am planning to become governor in 2015, and when I hear all these, I laugh, and that makes them desperate to undo me at all costs.

In 2005, the same allegations were trumped up against me and I faced trial at a High Court in Abuja. In 2008, I was discharged and acquitted of the charges. The records are there; yet these people can’t let me be.

I have never been a harbinger of violence all my life. In my days in the University of Lagos till graduation in the 1980s, I was a unionist, and pursued persuasion. After my days working in the National Assembly during the second republic, I did my Masters degree course in Unilag and another Masters degree course in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).

I lectured in the Benue State Polytechnic for 14 years and it is on record that while there, Tiv and Idoma students had a violent confrontation, and I was the only staffer, academic and non-academic, that intervened and helped to initiate their reconciliation. I have never been a businessman before or imported anything – knife, soap or meat, not to talk of guns.

How and when, all of a sudden, I turned violent and became a gun dealer is what the accusers need to explain to the world. I have a home here in Abuja, and the security agencies know where it is. I have another in Makurdi and a little country-home in my town. None of them is hidden.

I call on the SSS, police or any organ to search all of them and fetch the guns they said I kept there. Or let them confront me with the person or persons who said that I bought guns and armed them against anybody.

It became so funny that even the arms supplied to the Civil Defence recently, which I commissioned as the supervising minister, was linked to me.

They said that I diverted the guns, and God knows that after the guns were received at the handover, I never knew or asked where they were taken because that is not my duty. It is the Civil Defence that has that to handle. So all these are just politics of people who lack the capacity to persuade the electorate, and I just laugh at them because I hold on to my God, and I will continue to do that.