Emmanuel Thomas l Thursday, August 03, 2017
BADAGRY, Lagos, Nigeria – Tuesday, August 1, 2017 will remain indelible in the memory of journalists and team of non-governmental organisation privileged to be in the team that visited Badagry Prison, Lagos.
It was memorable not because 80 underaged prisoners were set free but the condition of those set free and many who are still in the prison that will die in the next few days. Just few days ago, five minors died , Badagry prison sources have said.
They all came out of the prision on Tuesday looking dirty, with many inflicted with various skin diseases as one could see as they run their fingers across their body frame. The feeling of hunger was vivid and evokes feelings of the Nigerian civil war of the 60s.
“We eat once a day and sleep sitting”, one of the prisoners said. Some very bony, frail and lacking the strength to stand. The clothes they put on have metamophorsed into oversized sackcloth due to the enormity of deprivation they have gone through. They struggle and fall upon themselves to grab a piece of snacks, reporters threw in their direction.
Amomg them are innocent teenagers arrested during raids for cultists and other juvenile crimes, their destination should naturally have been the juvenile homes, the many remand centres that the Lagos State Government has set up, but they found themselves in prison yard in the remotest part of Lagos.
You feel apprehension on their faces as they call for liberation from the hands of their captors. Help indeed came for 80 of them, courtesy the Lagos State Chief Judge, Justice Olufunmilayo Atilade. The minors were between the age of 12 and 17 and were said to have been arrested in various location by the Lagos State Task Force on Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences and convicted by the special courts.
Speaking at the occasion Atilade said the amnesty granted them was in tandem with the resolution of the judiciary to protect the Child Rights and also decongest prisons nationwide.
Justice Atilade who was very surprised at the total number of minors in that prison condemned the act of putting into prison underage children irrespective of their offences. She admonished them to be of good behaviour, “go and sin no more.”
“I pronounce, pursuant to the provisions of Sections 1(1) of the Criminal Justice (Release from Custody) Act, 2007 as well as Section 35 of the 1999 Constitution, you are all hereby released from custody”, Atilade said.
The Chief Judge thanked various stakeholders including Office Public Defendant (OPD), Prisons Decongestion Committee and numerous non-governmental organisations that have worked tirelessly to ensure the freedom of the inmates.
Justice Atilade specially thanked, Mrs. Dupe Olubanwo, a social worker, whom she said initiated the emergency prison visit due to the outcry of the overwhelming underage inmates languishing in Badagry Prison. Justice Yetunde idowu, who is the head of Family Court Division of the Lagos State Judiciary also condemned the development.
“Keeping a child in prison for more than 24 hours traumatises such a child and such should not be condoned at all in the state. We don’t want to encourage delinquency and we are starting today.
“The aim of the Criminal Justice System in respect of child offender is rehabilitatory and reformatory. We are urging everyone to quickly bring these kind of cases to our attention. Lagos State Solicitor-General, Mr. Funlola Odunlami also stressed that the state especially Governor Akinwumi Ambode frowns at Child Abuse and will not condone child imprisonment.
Odunlami also promised the prison authority that even though the prison is a federal agency, the state would look into all of their demands as always.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Deputy Comptroller General in charge of Badagry Prison, Mr. Oyeniran Famuwagun decried congestion of the prison. He said the prison which now houses 584 inmates was built to accommodate just 320 inmates.
He explained that 195 of the inmates are on the awaiting trial list. 389 others are convicts with a working staff population of about 70 staff. Famuwagun also complained of inadequate funding, lack of portable water and overstretched infrastructure at the prison particularly vehicles for conveying the inmates to courts.
