BEHIND the high walls of Nigeria’s prison system, thousands of forlorn souls endure a grim existence. Recent revelations about the Nigerian Correctional Service expose a system so plagued by neglect, mismanagement, and corruption that every custodial sentence could easily become a death sentence by starvation.
In prisons across the country, from Ikoyi to Calabar, Kano to Maiduguri, inmates tell harrowing tales of being fed worse than animals.
Reports speak of watery soups without meat or fish, beans filled with stones and weevils, dry garri passed off as sustenance, and rations so meagre they are measured in empty milk tins.
Some prisoners claim that food is laced with chemicals called “scattering powder” to keep them weak and numb to prevent them from causing trouble.
These are sordid testimonies of men and women slowly wasting away under the very watch of a system meant to rehabilitate them.
The conditions described mimic those of death camps operated by opposing powers during World War II.
This is not conjecture. An independent panel, convened by the Minister of Interior, confirmed that inmates are dying of hunger, citing rampant food racketeering, woefully insufficient rations, and a disturbing culture of corruption that places profit over life.
A seasoned prison rights advocate on the panel, Ujo Agomoh, described the current state as “unprecedentedly dire,” warning that starvation is not only killing inmates but also stirring potential unrest within the walls of these overcrowded facilities.
As of September 2024, at least 6,675 inmates, including high-profile Boko Haram terrorists and murderers, escaped in 13 separate jailbreaks that hit Nigerian custodial centres in the last five years, largely due to anger over poor treatment, overcrowding, and insecure facilities.
Yet, despite overwhelming evidence and eyewitness accounts, the NCoS leadership denies the obvious.
The Acting Comptroller-General, Sylvester Nwakuche, dismissed the hunger claims as exaggeration, citing a lack of statistics. The NCoS Public Relations Officer branded the reports as “misleading” and insisted inmates are well-fed under government guidelines. This is face-saving detachment from reality.
Hunger, malnutrition, and untreated illnesses should not be part of a prison sentence. Justice demands accountability, but it also insists on the right to be free from torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, the right to due process, and the right to legal representation as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution.
Denying inmates adequate food is a form of torture that cannot be justified by budget constraints or bureaucratic negligence. It is illegal.
The rot in Nigeria’s prison system runs deep. Wardens reportedly grant privileges including access to “VIP” accommodation, mobile phones, TVs, private electricity, and illegal conjugal visits to wealthy prisoners in exchange for bribes.
For the poor, corruption has weaponised starvation, with food contractors and complicit officers allegedly siphoning resources meant for the incarcerated.
Facilities built for hundreds now house thousands. Funding is perpetually inadequate, and oversight mechanisms are either weak or corrupt themselves.
Nigeria must confront this anomaly. Prisons are not supposed to be hellholes or gulags. They are institutions of correction, rehabilitation, and eventual reintegration.
Democratic societies do not measure progress by how they treat their best citizens, but by how they treat their worst. Nigeria cannot afford to retain the colonial mentality of using the prison system to punish rather than reform.
The Bola Tinubu administration must implement wholesale prison reforms. It must immediately launch an independent audit of prison feeding contracts, with transparent, public reporting. The NCoS must implement the provisions of Section 14, Subsection 4 of its own Act, which guarantees proper feeding and welfare of inmates.
The Minister of Interior, Bunmi Tunji-Ojo, must address the prison reforms with the same vigour with which he addressed passport issuance racketeering.
NGOs, faith-based organisations, human rights defenders and the media should be granted regular access to provide supplementary support and to serve as watchdogs over a system long overdue for rehabilitation.
The National Assembly must immediately initiate comprehensive prison reform legislation that addresses the core challenges of Nigeria’s correctional system.
For a start, the ration allowance must be increased from the N1,125 approved in August 2024 to reflect the current economic realities and ensure inmates are fed adequately. Feeding should not be subject to corruption or cost-cutting.
Nigerian prisons are overcrowded largely because of slow judicial processes, poor police investigation and coordination with the courts, and the inability of many prisoners to afford legal representation. Case files are routinely lost, leaving prisoners in limbo.
As of April 2025, Nigeria’s prison population stood at 79,611 inmates held in 256 institutions, exceeding the official capacity of 50,153 by 136.7 per cent, per World Prison Brief. About 65.4 per cent, are pre-trial detainees or remand prisoners.
The legislature must work with the judiciary to expedite trials, reduce unnecessary pre-trial detentions, and ensure timely justice.
Fast-track courts, digital case management, and decongestion task forces led by magistrates and judges should be instituted and funded appropriately.
Welfare and healthcare services within prisons must be improved. Inmates deserve access to proper medical care, mental health support, and recreational activities that aid rehabilitation. A society that refuses to reform its offenders only guarantees their return to crime.
In September 2024, the NCoS reported that over 1,000 inmates are participating in various degree programmes, including 282 diploma and master’s degree students, along with six pursuing their PhD programmes. This is positive.
There should be more opportunities for academic and vocational training, including farming, to enable prisoners to grow their own food.
Prison officers need better training and welfare. To reform the prison system, improved training to cope with a high-stress, high-risk environment, including prisoner control measures, security awareness and response, professionalism, and ethics, with better pay, is required.
The concept of incarceration itself must be revisited. Nigeria must adopt alternative correctional models, such as non-custodial sentences for minor offences.
Community service, fines, and restitution can be more appropriate for certain crimes than confinement.
A functional parole system would help reduce prison populations, reward good behaviour, and help in rehabilitation.
Many Nigerian prisons are relics of the colonial era, characterised by crumbling mud walls and inadequate facilities. New and improved facilities need to be built to accommodate the country’s growing population, which is expected to reach 400 million by 2025.
Nigeria should devolve the prison system and consider state-run and privately managed prison facilities, as seen in the United States and other parts of the world.
Decentralising prison management can lift standards, enhance accountability, tailor correctional approaches to local needs, and improve security.
Legal aid is another critical area of reform. Many inmates languish in prison, not necessarily because they are guilty, but because they cannot afford legal representation.
All state governments should create Offices of the Public Defender to support indigent citizens. The Legal Aid Council of Nigeria must be better funded and partner with civil society organisations to ensure that no Nigerian is denied justice because they cannot afford a lawyer.
Ultimately, Nigeria must decide if it wants a justice system that is brutally punitive or one that corrects, rehabilitates, and reintegrates. The current system fails the rehabilitation test and must be discontinued.
The authorities, indeed, all of society, must not overlook the fact that prisoners are still fellow citizens – fathers, mothers, and children.
Many are still awaiting trial, many guilty of only minor offences, and many still capable of reform. How they are treated defines society far more than their crimes define them.
Starvation is not justice. Neglect is not discipline. The executive, legislature, the judiciary, and other stakeholders must work together to foster a humane, efficient, and just prison system. This is how Nigerian society should be defined.
