One issue that will engage the Senate when it resume is the controversy on the number of Nigerians in British prisons and whether they should be returned home to serve their terms, Olukayode Thomas reports
When the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, visited Nigeria last month, one of the proposals he tabled before President Goodluck Jonathan was prisoners’ exchange scheme. Under the scheme, nationals of both countries who are serving terms would be repatriated to complete their sentence in their countries.
Shortly after the meeting, President Jonathan started working with the Senate to secure the passage of a Bill on the mutual exchange of prisoners;
The Bill sent to the Senate seeks to amend the transfer of convicted offenders (Enactment and Enforcement) Act.
Senate Leader, Senator Ndoma-Egba said the bill “was to give effect to the Common Wealth scheme on convicted offenders between Common Wealth countries.’’
However, many Senators opposed the bill on the ground, that the financial implications of transferring prisoners back home would be too much for the country to shoulder.
They argued that transferring prisoners from any part of the world back to the country without their consent is an infringement of their rights, adding that citizens convicted abroad, especially in the United Kingdom, would not like to serve their jail terms at home. The bill was later referred to the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters due to the controversy that trailed it.
The cost of feeding prisoners
Though new in Nigeria, the idea of sending prisoners back to their countries to serve their terms actually started in 2008 in the United Kingdom because the government wanted to cut expenses on prisoners.
Cameron’s position, according to The Mail of London, is based on the fact that the number of foreign inmates in British jails is one in seven, and the cost of feeding them is high. He, therefore, wants to send them back to serve their prison terms in their countries of origin.
There are currently 11,135 foreign inmates out of a total prison population of more than 85,000.
The Mail revealed that it costs the British taxpayer £38,000 (about N9.5 million ) to keep prisoners for a year! This is more than the fees to send a pupil to Eton, Britain’s most elite college!!
Numbers of Nigerians in UK prisons
With the Senate due to resume its debate of the bill on September 8, investigations have shown that the number of Nigerians in United Kingdom prisons is 614 and not 16,400. Senator Benedict Ayade had during the Senate’s debate said “in the United Kingdom alone, Nigerians serving various prison terms are 16, 4000 in number and it costs the UK government about 1.6 million pounds per day to feed them.”
A shocked Senate President David Mark expressed sadness at Ayade’s revelation, “I am shocked to hear that there are 16,400 Nigerians in various prisons abroad, this is a thing not to be proud of, we don’t know the authenticity of the figure, but it calls for concern.”
Contacted, Alison Walker of the Justice Statistics Analytical Services said as at June 2011, there are only 614 Nigerian prisoners in the United Kingdom.
Morris Peter of the same office however directed The Nation to the Ministry’s statistics website which shows that there is total of 85, 523 prisoners in the United Kingdom.
Of this figure, 81,354 are male, while 4,169 are female.
Figures given by Walker showed the number of Nigerian prisoners in the United Kingdom has dropped from that of last year.
The 2010 population of prisoners in the United Kingdom published in The Mail last year showed that Jamaica has the highest number which is 942; Nigeria was second then with 727, Ireland third with 681 and Poland fourth with 642.
Other countries in the top bracket include Vietnam with 596, Pakistan 440, Somalia 433, Romania 380, China 364, and Lithuania 361.
In a response to inquiries, Adewale Adebajo of the British High Commission, Lagos, confirmed that the figure of 16,400 Nigerian prisoners was incorrectly cited in the Senate. According to an e-mail sent to this reporter, he wrote ‘‘We can confirm that, as at 30 June 2011, 614 Nigerians were detained in UK prisons – less than four per cent of the stated number.’’
Adebajo stated that the High Commission is not aware of any British citizens who are currently in Nigerian prisons, although there may be dual nationals.
On the merits and demerits of the agreement for both countries, Adebajo said ‘‘we each have a responsibility for the actions and welfare of our nationals in our respective countries. This agreement would provide an inter-governmental basis for us to carry out our responsibilities towards our nationals in each other’s prisons, including by allowing for their return to their home country in the event that both of our governments agree.
“Any transfers would need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, and both governments would need to agree to a prisoner’s transfer. Transferring prisoners mid-sentence to serve their sentences at home allows receiving authorities to put in place appropriate and proportionate measures to preserve public safety; to rehabilitate closer to friends and family; and to prevent reoffending.’’
He said that the UK and Nigerian governments are working together more than ever on justice sector reform, on human rights issues, and on addressing illegal migration. The Prisoners Transfer Agreement (PTA) would be reciprocal. Prisoners could be transferred in both directions. And any PTA would have to address the issue of “double criminality” – people could only be transferred if the crime of which they had been convicted also constituted a crime in the receiving country
Between Jamaica and South Africa
While the Nigerian government is receptive to the idea of prisoners’ exchange, the same cannot be said of Jamaica. When Cameron announced that Jamaican prisoners in United Kingdom jails will be sent back home, the government kicked against it, saying it is contrary to the existing arrangements between both nations.
The National Security Minister, Dwight Nelson had last year said, “We have an agreement with the United Kingdom and we stand by that agreement. Jamaican laws do not permit people who commit offences within other jurisdictions to serve their sentences in this country.”
South Africa has also backed out of an agreement that will allow its citizens serving sentences in other countries to be transferred home.
The government’s decision not to sign the agreement angered many citizens as they could not understand why government won’t agree to bring home citizens, who are prisoners in foreign countries, to serve their sentences near their families. They argued that government is well aware that so many South Africans held in foreign jails are poor and are either duped or recruited into the drug trade. The reason they were susceptible in the first place, they argued, is because they were desperate – their families do not have the means to communicate, visit and support them where they are incarcerated far away from home. They posited that government’s policy of not repatriating their citizens back home to serve their sentences is a direct violation of those citizens’ human rights.
Nigerian prisoners in Thailand
Whereas the prisoner exchange deal is generating controversy today, same could not be said of those who were brought home from Thailand during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.
The prisoners who have spent two-thirds of their terms at the Central Maximum Security Prisons in Thailand’s capital Bangkok were repatriated back home.
The agreement was reached after a meeting between the then Federal Attorney General Akinlolu Charles Olujimi and his Thai counterpart Kampree Kaocharen.
The prisoners were happy to leave Thailand as they wore colourful Nigerian clothes and sandals given to them by the embassy. They thanked the government, especially, the country’s ambassador to Thailand.
Ready to receive repatriated prisoners
When contacted on the readiness of the Nigerian prison authorities, readiness to cope with the repatriated prisoners, the Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Prison Service (NPS), Alagbon Close, Lagos, Mr. Chuks Njoku, said the prison system can conveniently accommodate them. He added that there are many structures being built by the service in different parts of the country while the existing ones are being improved on.
According to him, all the NPS will need is just extra money to feed the new addition to its inmates.
He said, ‘‘It is not a new thing, we have done it before and we have the capacity to do it again. Remember that under the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo we received many prisoners from Thailand without any problem. Our facilities are okay.’’
However, investigations around the prisons in Lagos and discussions with some inmates, human rights groups and others revealed that there is still overcrowding in many prisons across the country.
‘‘Things are better in prison now, it is not like before. There is small overcrowding, but not like before, and they are building new structures all over the country. Where there has been great improvement are in the areas of feeding and clothing, and freedom. Prisoners can now play in the open, women now have salon, even the condition of warders have improved tremendously. Before we were like prisoners, but now many of us are buying cars and living well,’’ a group of NPS officials who spoke off record said.
They attributed the improved situations of prisons to human rights groups and non government organizations campaign, ‘‘The moment you serve them bad food and the over crowing gets bad, they will tell these organisations, and before you know it, everything will be in the press’’ said the NPS official.
There are however mixed feelings as to how many of the 614 Nigerian prisoners in Britain would elect to come and complete their term at home taking into cognisance the condition of the country’s prisons. |
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