The Federal Government has disclosed that 93 per cent of inmates in Nigeria’s custodial facilities are being held for state offences, with only seven per cent facing federal offences, even as it revealed that between 30 and 50 per cent of inmates may be serving time for offences that do not warrant imprisonment.
The Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, made the disclosure on Wednesday in Abuja at the Regional Conference on the Classification of Prisoners and the Use of Technology in Prisons in Africa.
The conference was jointly organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the African Correctional Services Association (ACSA).
Tunji-Ojo said the figures had exposed the need for a fundamental rethink of the way Nigeria and other African countries classify offenders and deploy imprisonment as a response to crime.
“93% of our inmates in Nigeria are state offenders. Only 7% are federal offenders. And of this 93%, I want to tell you before this president came on board, a lot of them were for minor offences that had no need for incarceration,” the minister said.
He said the Federal Government, upon his assumption of office, undertook an audit of inmates incarcerated over minor fines and compensation orders, a process that resulted in the release of more than 4,000 inmates.
“When I became minister, I called my permanent secretary, I called the Controller General of the Correctional Service, and I said, listen, give me the data, the record of people who are in correctional centres for fines and compensation of less than 500,000 or something. And guess what? Over 4,000 people,” he said.
According to the minister, the continued detention of such inmates was economically irrational, as the government spent far more feeding and maintaining them than the value of the fines or compensation involved.
“I said, what is the sense in this? Because I feed them in a year with more than 10 times of the fine. So how is the government benefiting?” he asked.
Tunji-Ojo said the government subsequently cleared the affected cases, resulting in the decongestion of correctional facilities by five per cent in a single day.
“And we were able to clear that, and in one day, we decongested our correctional centre by 5% in one day. In one day,” he said.
The Minister said the experience raised a broader question about the rationale behind overcrowding in correctional facilities, insisting that the number of inmates alone should not be the only measure of the crisis.
“The question is this. Is your correctional centre rightfully overcrowded? That is the question. You have to look at those particular offences. You will realise that more than 30, 40, 50 percent are offences that do not warrant incarceration,” he said.
The disclosure comes against the background of Nigeria’s long-running prison congestion crisis. Correctional facilities across the country have for years struggled with overcrowding, placing enormous pressure on feeding, healthcare, security, rehabilitation and other essential services.
A significant proportion of the inmate population comprises persons awaiting trial. In many cases, detainees spend prolonged periods in custody before their cases are concluded, with some eventually discharged for lack of evidence or after spending periods in detention that exceed the sentences they might have received if convicted.
The situation has fuelled concerns over access to justice, the presumption of innocence and the impact of poverty on the criminal justice system, particularly where suspects are unable to meet bail conditions or secure effective legal representation.
The Minister’s position suggests that the problem cannot be solved simply by constructing more prisons. Rather, it requires a more rigorous classification of inmates, faster trials and greater use of non-custodial measures for minor and non-violent offences.
Beyond decongestion, Tunji-Ojo said the Federal Government had also recorded significant progress in reducing recidivism through education, skills acquisition and rehabilitation.
He disclosed that the number of inmates returning to crime had fallen sharply from about 13,000 cases annually in 2023 to approximately 1,000 last year.
The Minister attributed the improvement to increased access to education and vocational training within correctional facilities.
