By Edwin Philip
In continuation of consultation with law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, on solving the issues of congestion in correctional facilities across the country, the Nigerian Police Force(NPF) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agencies (NDLEA) were said to be the foundation of inmates overcrowding custodial centres.
This was the focus of day 7 of the second Independent Investigative Panel on Alleged Corruption, Abuse of Power, Torture, Cruel, Inhumane, and Degrading Treatment Against, the Nigerian Correctional Service, holding at Aso hall of Abuja Continental Hotel.
The Nigerian Police were said to hold individuals in detention without trial beyond the constitutional required period as stipulated in section 35(5) of the 1999 constitution as amended, over criminalization of suspects without evidence, arresting and pushing into detention and abandoning them, as well as arresting without investigation.
According to the representative of the Nigerian Police Force, in his presentation, said the force is working at ensuring that every police station has a police lawyer attached to it, so as to ease prosecution in accordance with section 20 of the police act, as the Police academy in Wudi, Kano State is churning out numbers of lawyers yearly.
The panel through it Secretary, Dr Uju Agomoh, however, demanded to know the numbers of police detention centres and detainees across the country, as such records will assist in documentation, accountability and transparency in line with decongestion of detention facilities in the country, she reminded the force of the anti torture act of 2017, were offenders will serve 25 years in detention.
She decried the situation where the police will handover tortured suspects to the facilities of the correctional centres, only for them to die shortly, as against the Correctional Service act, which forbids accepting persons that are injured into detention, the panel flagged three notorious torture centres in the country to include Tiger base located in Anambra State, Akuzor in Imo as well as Abattoir situated in the FCT, saying that such more could exists across the country.
Speaking at the Panel, the representative of the NDLEA, said they are partners in progress with the Nigerian correctional service, as their suspect are kept in Correctional facilities for prosecution, the issue of prosecution was however disputed by Correctional service, as their duty is only to keep, the NDLEA in proffering some reforms for the service, pointed to the areas of need, such as lack of medical facilities for inmates, the need for more vehicles to convey inmates to courts, better welfare for inmates and personnel.
On the decongestion on the custodial facilities, she advocated for plea bargaining, which according to her NDLEA has already adopted, she however agreed to furnished the panel on a later date, the number of detention facilities they have across the country, taking into consideration, the ages of suspects, gender and charges.
Questions were put across for clarification to the NPF and NDLEA, from the Panel, Correctional Service, Ministry of Justice, Legal Aid council, Committee Against Torture Nigeria among others.
The complains of victimisation of personnels of the Correctional Service was entertained, with an officer complaining about the arbitrary deductions in his salary account, frequent transfer as against service rules, according to him, he has been transferred 25 times in his 23 years of working with the Correctional Service, alleging that he is been victimised.
Another officer complained of been stagnated in a certain rank for too long even when he sits for promotion exams, he is not shortlisted for promotion and has not been among those to write the promotion examination slated for the month of March 2024, also a Staff who was allegedly said to proceed on compulsory retirement owing to an alleged forged certificate, demanded for compensation and transparency in the manner he was asked to leave the service and others with similar issues not affected.
On the complains, the Chairman of the panel, Dr Magdalene Ajani, who is also the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Interior, demanded to know who is in charge of transfer, as too much powers seems to be given to States and Zonal Controllers and the national headquarters not doing enough, on the alleged fake certificate, she asked the service to avail the panel with the report of ICPC, board and the internal minutes of the service.