Biola Azeez was on the entourage of Kwara State chief judge, Justice Raliat Habeeb-Elelu, when she visited Ilorin Prisons for the purpose of prison decongestion. His report.

A popular radio presenter on a radio station in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, usually signs out on his programme in the morning belt of programming by saying, "if you trouble trouble, you will get double trouble. So, stay out of trouble today."

The import of the message was practically demonstrated during a recent visit to one of the prisons in Ilorin, the Nigeria Prison, Oke Kura, located in the heart of the metropolis. The visit was at the instance of the state Criminal Justice Committee of the state government, when the members of the committee, led by the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Raliat Habeeb-Elelu, among other reasons, held a court session to see to the decongestion of the prison. It was gathered that such visit was last made to the prison two years ago. During the visit it was realised that one doesn't actually need to trouble trouble before getting into trouble as trouble may just come on its own at times.

As of April 20, 2012, the record of the prison showed that there was a total of 11 short term prisoners; all male, while the total number of long term prisoners was 23; 21 males and two females. There were two lifers, both were male. Also condemned convicts were 13; all male. The total number of prisoners on awaiting trial was 201; 199 males and two females. So, there was a total number of 250 inmates in Ilorin prison, among who were 199 males and four females awaiting trial.

One after the other, the 199  inmates of the prison that were on awaiting trial list were called out in an exercise that lasted about three hours to consider the nature of their offences, period already spent awaiting trial, state of health, among other reasons that could lead to giving state pardon to the inmates.

At the end of the exercise, only seven were lucky to be set free by the Chief Judge.

Speaking after the exercise, Justice Habeeb-Elelu reiterated that there had not been any visitation to the prisons in the state in the past two years, adding that there had been so many complaints by accused persons in custody, particularly, from those who were not ordinarily supposed to be there.

"Some are here for some offences that their sentences are not up to six months but they had stayed more than the six months. For instance, there was a person who stole a fowl and had spent almost nine months. So, we had to discharge him. Most of those discharged were freed for lighter offences like theft, public fighting or trespasses as they were just being detained and there were no trials", she said.

Justice Habeeb-Elelu, who said a total number of seven inmates were discharged during the exercise, added that the Criminal and Justice Committee of the state government, of which she is the chairman, carried out the exercise and not only her office.

She promised to make the exercise a continuous process, adding that the next prison to visit would be Mandalla prison, "and by the grace of God, before courts proceed on vacation, we are going to have another prison visit, may be in July.

Also speaking, the controller of prison in Kwara State, Olanrele Joseph, said the exercise was a welcome development and commended the committee for giving the inmates a sense of belonging.

He said the major problems of the prison bordered on logistics, adding that vehicles to take inmates to court had broken down, saying there was need to repair them to perform the statutory function of moving prisoners to court as at when due, stressing that most of the courts were outside Ilorin, the state capital and situated in pear like Oro, Omu Aran and Offa.

He also called on government to resuscitate its vocational centres particularly for the convicted prisoners by equipping its vocational programmes like carpentry, barbing, shoe-making, and brick-making, adding that the state government should take measures so that the inmates would be made to be productive and not idle.

The visit of the chief judge had heightened the hope of some of the inmates awaiting trial of being freed that day. Most of them, if not all of them had thought they would regain their freedom that day. So, when the CJ passed her 'no' verdict on them and were ordered to return to where they had all been gathered in the sun to squat on the bare ground  throughout the whole exercise, their disappointment and psychological trauma were palpable.

For Ganiyu Olanrewaju, his case could best be described as the fallout of a power game. Olanrewaju was dating a woman who had not officially been disengaged from her husband, so he asked the lady in question to go and get official divorce from her man. Due to the supposed high level of affection between the two love birds, the lady went ahead to disengage from her man and ultimately packed her things from her ex-husband's house. The next thing Olanrewaju saw was a policeman who he said had come to arrest him and the new wife. What for? The ex-hubby had accused her former wife of going away with some of his property and traced her to her new man's house.

The matter that was heard at Oro magistrate court, in Irepodun LGA of Kwara State, eventually brought the two of them to Ilorin Prison. Interestingly, the woman was granted bail few days into her stay in the prison, while Olanrewaju had been languishing in prison since March. He told the CJ that his people, who he said are all in Lagos, had not come for his bail.

The case of Taye Michael is pitiable judging from the account gathered. Michael, in his late 40s, had gone to a church (name withheld) located at popular Oboo Road in Ilorin in search of employment as it was gathered that the church was operating an employment programme for members. Along the line, Michael initiated friendship with a lady who caught his fancy in the church, unknown to him that a pastor in the church was already having intimacy with the lady. It was also gathered that Michael found himself in the prison when the church accused him of impersonation and trespass. The charge that was read against him during the prison visit was that he impersonated a medical doctor in the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital and went ahead with intent to entice young girls in the church.

There was also a case of two young men in an Ilorin-bound commercial bus coming from Lagos. It happened that a GSM phone belonging to one of the other passengers in the bus was discovered missing in the course of the journey. One of the passengers volunteered to call the number of the missing phone and the phone rang in a bag belonging to one of the two young men. Also found in the bag was a locally-made gun! With that, they found a free ticket to Ilorin prison.

Speaking on the issue of prison decongestion in a recent interview with the Nigerian Tribune, in Ilorin, the Chairman, House Committee on Justice, who represents Ilorin South/East federal constituency of Kwara State, Hon. Ali Ahmad, related the findings of his committee while it went round prisons in the country.

"Since I was a student, I have been hearing of prison reforms but I have come to the conclusion even while I was the Attorney General of Kwara State, two years ago, that prison will never be reformed.

"When we tried it in Kwara State it worked a little. If we could take that route it might work. But what you have at the federal level is that you have billions of naira being voted for prison decongestion, but it's all scam.

"Someone can't sit in Abuja to do prison decongestion. It doesn't work. When you do it this year, it doubles the next year. So, why not use the billions to address the root cause of the problem. The lawyers only make appearances in court, they don't care about the prisoners. The reports are there. All these might not work. What might work is to move prison as a whole from exclusive list to concurrent list. I sponsored a bill on constitution amendment on that. I have seen it work in some advanced countries. If federal government wants to do something, it attaches finance to it. So, by attaching finance to it for state governments, the state governors will sit up.

"Most of these prisoners are state prisoners. They ran foul of state laws, not federal laws and prisons belong to the federal government. So, when you say you want to reform prisons, state governments do not care because the feeding, health and logistics of the prisoners are not theirs.

But if you say the state governments should take care of the prisoners and the FG gives money from the exclusive list to the state governments, the governors would sit down because they know once they have more prisoners to take care of they know the issue will eat into their finances.

"That's how it can work. In Kwara State, we put biometric machine in Kwara prisons to identify the prisoners. Our record keeping in Nigeria is so porous. The same accused rapist comes in and out and continues to commit the crime. If the criminals who commit state crimes should go to state prisons, governors will see the need for prison reform," he said.