Governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has accused the Federal Government and its law enforcement agencies of contributing to the problem of prison congestion in the country through what he described as “executive rascality.”The governor, however, called on the office of the National Security Adviser to critically appraise the nefarious activities of the security and law enforcement agencies, saying apart from constituting an infraction on the fundamental rights of citizens guaranteed under the constitution, they also contribute to the perennial problem of prison congestion in the country.
Fayose’s position was contained in his response to a letter by the NSA, Maj. Gen. B.M. Mungonu (retd.), to state governors with reference number NSA/601/A and dated January 16, 2017 on the need to facilitate quick decongestion of Nigerian prisons.
Good that somebody with such influential voice can re-echo what has been voiced time and time again. There has been a long history of draconian, punitive approach to incarceration instead of reformative; containment, instead of rehabilitation and ‘easy’ means of case disposals, from the police through to the court systems, all of which seems not to give regard to a process of inquisition before meting out penalties. A revamp of prisons has been long overdue, just as a National Compliance Standard is required for all participants in the criminal justice system. More importantly, a tariff system for misdemeanous offences will be in order to stave off unnecessary incarceration, imprisonment of the innocent, miscarriage of justice and politically-motivated containment of identified individuals.
Penal reforms should look at abstractions of crime and punishment to determine how best disposals and dispensation of justice should be structured in its entirety. Prisons should no longer be an institution of crime but where ‘criminals’ are reformed to become productive citizens.
With the involvement of the 3rd sector (Private institutions), some reform can be achieved working in partnership with the criminal justice system, especially in the juvenile justice sector where youths tend to absorb quickly the ‘lessons from the inside’ particularly where they end up in adult detention structure.
The 3rd sector, in many modernised systems has more reformative, rehabilitative systems in place such as educational and vocational provisions to enable an ‘un-learning’ of criminality of the youths whilst offering them what to use productively post-incarceration. Yes, it is a genuine critique by the governor and this is a nation-wide learning point to note and implement.