MINISTER of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has disclosed that 93 per cent of inmates in Nigerian custodial facilities are state offenders, while only seven per cent are being held for federal offences, noting that a significant number of those incarcerated ought not to be in prison in the first place.
News Point Nigeria reports that 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, jointly organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the African Correctional Services Association (ACSA).
The minister said the Federal Government had taken decisive steps to decongest correctional facilities by focusing on inmates imprisoned for minor offences.
“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,” he said.
Tunji-Ojo recounted how, shortly after assuming office, he ordered a comprehensive audit of inmates being held over minor fines and compensation judgments.
“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 stated.
According to him, the exercise exposed the futility of keeping such offenders in custody at taxpayers’ expense.
“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? And we were able to clear that, and in one day, we decongested our correctional centre by 5% in one day. In one day,” the minister added.
Tunji-Ojo said the development highlighted a broader issue that correctional authorities across Africa must confront regarding prison overcrowding.
“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 minister also disclosed that recidivism in Nigeria’s correctional facilities had dropped significantly under the current administration, falling from about 13,000 cases annually in 2023 to 1,000 cases last year.
He attributed the sharp decline to expanded access to education and vocational training programmes for inmates across the country.
According to him, the Nigerian Correctional Service currently has 62 inmates pursuing postgraduate studies, 261 enrolled in undergraduate programmes, 1,125 undergoing formal education, 18 National Open University centres operating within correctional facilities, and 9,582 inmates participating in vocational and non-formal rehabilitation programmes.
Tunji-Ojo further revealed that Nigeria had gone three years without recording a single jailbreak or attack on any correctional facility, attributing the feat to improved data management and enhanced collaboration among security agencies.
He cited an incident in which an escaped inmate was rearrested after attempting to obtain a Nigerian passport through the biometric database shared among security institutions.
“Immediately he put his finger at the level of Nigeria Immigration Service to procure a passport. Immigration saw it immediately that he was an inmate. And immediately they reached out to correctional service and he was arrested right there,” he said.
Also speaking at the conference, the Controller General of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Sylvester Ndidi Nwakuche, said Nigeria had continued to modernise its correctional system through reforms anchored on the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, 2019.
Nwakuche noted that effective prisoner classification had become a strategic tool for identifying inmates’ risk levels, protecting vulnerable prisoners, ensuring efficient deployment of resources and delivering targeted rehabilitation programmes.
He added that the integration of technology into correctional administration would improve record management, strengthen information sharing and enhance institutional accountability.
According to him, no correctional service possesses all the answers to contemporary security and rehabilitation challenges.
“We have a unique opportunity to exchange ideas, share practical experiences and collectively develop solutions that will strengthen correctional systems across Africa,” Nwakuche said.