Nigeria had a dual prison system for more than a half century until the consolidation of the federal and local prisons in 1968. The Nigerian Prison Service, a department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was headquartered in Lagos and headed by a director responsible for administering nearly 400 facilities, including regular prisons, special penal institutions, and lockups. All of these facilities since 1975 came under federal control. Nigeria's prison system, as in most Third World countries, is grossly inadequate. Most prisons have no toilet facilities, and cells lack water. Mistreatment of inmates is common, abuse frequent, and torture occasional.

Many prisons in Nigeria have no toilet facilities, and cells lacked water. Medical facilities were severely limited; food, which represented 80 percent of annual prison expenditures, was inadequate, despite a prison agricultural program designed to produce local foodstuffs for the commercial market. Malnutrition and disease were therefore rampant.

Mistreatment of inmates was common, abuse frequent, and torture occasional. In May 1987 at Benin prison, armed police killed twenty-four inmates rioting over food supplies, and in 1988 a "secret" ten-year-old detention camp on Ita Oko Island, off Lagos, was exposed and closed. Nearly 300 prisoners died of "natural causes" in 1984, and 79 committed suicide, a dramatic increase from the average of 12 suicides per year between 1980 and 1983. Ikoyi alone recorded more than 300 deaths in 1988, and 42 deaths in the first three months of 1989. In June 1989, the Civil Liberties Organisation filed suit on behalf of 1,000 detainees held without trial at Ikoyi, charging the government with mistreatment and urging that the 113-year-old prison be closed.

Most Nigerian prisons were built 70 to 80 years ago and lack functioning basic facilities. Lacking basic infrastructure such as potable water, these prisons additionally host two or three times the quantity of prisoners they originally were constructed for. While the Nigerian government for a long time has acknowledged these problems, nothing has been done so far.

KNOWN PRISONS IN NIGERIA

• Umuahia Prison
• Aba Prison
• Owerri Prison
• Port Harcourt prison
• Benin prison
• Goron-Dutse prison
• Ikoyi 113-year-old prison
• Kakuri medium security prisons
• Kano prison
• Kirikiri maximum security prison Lagos
• KiriKiri medium prison Lagos
• Kuje (Abuja) medium security prison
• Makurdi prison
• Sokoto prison farm

Dr DC Nwogu
Dunamis House
Umuekwule Afugiri
Umuahia, Abia State.
Nigeria.

FREEDOM IS A RIGHT OF ALL HUMAN BEINGS IN A WORLD WHERE LIFE IS VALUED AND PEACE MAY FINALLY BE A POSSABILITY