Kano ranks top among states with awaiting trial inmates, says CURE-Nigeria

Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, (CURE-Nigeria), a non-governmental organization yesterday declared Kano state as the state with the highest number of pre-trial detainees languishing in prisons.

Executive Director of the organisation, Sylvester Uhaa, made the submission during a summit on Justice reforms and human rights in Kano State, which was organized by the organisation in collaboration with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Northwest zone.

According to the group, the ugly trend among other uncharitable factors is responsible for needless prisons congestion across the country. Sylvester added that, despite the violation of fundamental human right of those unlawful incarcerated, access to basic healthcare, decent feeding and rehabilitation of the inmates are nothing close to decency.

Uhaa noted that out of the over 70,000 prisoners in Nigeria, more than 50,000 representing over 70 per cent of the entire prisons population are awaiting trial. He also stated that with the available statistics, Nigeria ranks fifth and next to Libya as country with the highest awaiting trial population in Africa.

He maintained that in spite the increasing number of pre-trial detainees, the existing prisons build several years ago have never witnessed significant rehabilitation in recent times. He decried the excessive and abusive use of pre-trial detention, which according to him, is one of the biggest forms of human right violations in the Nigeria and often ignored with Kano state yet to domesticate the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJ-ACT).