Nigeria Content Online

The acting director general of the
Legal Aid council, Micheal Abiodun Awoponle, has said that Nigerian
prisons are congested with awaiting trial inmates, and not with
convicted prisoners.

Mr. Awoponle, at a press briefing in
Abuja yesterday, said about 75 percent of inmates in Nigerian prisons
await trial. Most prison inmates in Nigeria have not been convicted of
any offence; instead, they wait years for their trial in appalling
conditions.

According to him, he disagreed with
people that say Nigerian prisons are congested, saying that the prisons
are congested with those awaiting trial, but not with those already
convicted of any crime.

Specifically, he said under his
leadership, the council has set out to put in place in 2011 reviving
and strengthening the Legal Aid Council Human Rights initiatives, and
posting of lawyers to all the prisons in Nigeria under Prison Awaiting
Trial Mates (ATM) judicare scheme.

Furthermore, he said as advocates of
the weak and vulnerable in the society, the council would also
establish in all its offices structures that would take care of the
legal needs of women and children. In addition, awareness campaigns
would be held regularly for women and children. The council would
establish a Legal Aid Research library that would inevitably assist the
council in establishing its own Legal Aid case law report.

“The council is faced with inadequate
funding, hence, it cannot fully pay for extensive and intensive
publicity that is required to sensitise the teeming population of our
people, especially in the grassroot of our services. Because it is only
when these poor people are aware of our services that they can take
advantage of them,” he said.

He also said that based on the
availability of returns received from the headquarters, zones and
states, the council has received from inception a total number of
86,482 applications, out of which 75,259 were granted. Completed cases
stands at 51, 336, while 23,923 cases remain pending as at today.

The acting director general, who blamed
Nigeria’s judicial system said the reason why there are more people
awaiting trial, is that at times there is a disconnect between the
police authority, the Nigerian Prison services, and the court itself,
but called on the Federal Government to put every machinery in motion
to ensure that awaiting trial inmates case should be addressed to
decongest the prisons.

He said that another easy way of
settling disputes is the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), saying
that it is dispute resolution processes and techniques that act as
means for disagreeing parties to come to an agreement short of
litigation.

“Despite historic resistance to ADR by
many popular parties and their advocates, ADR has gained widespread
acceptance among both the general public and the legal profession in
recent years. In fact, some courts now require some parties to resort
to ADR of some type, usually mediation, before permitting the parties’
cases to be tried,” he said.

Further more, he said that the council
received appropriation in its 2010 budget to establish Legal Aid
centres in one local government area in each of the states in Nigeria
and the FCT.

“The concept of the Legal Aid Centre initiative is the council’s
means of taking legal aid to the fourth level of legal aid delivery in
Nigeria (grassroots’). The legal aid centres would serve as hub for
delivering the full complements of legal aid services at the local
government areas. The centres would be fully equipped with all the
electronic gadgets of a modern office,” he said.