30-50% of offenses don’t warrant incarceration, says Nigeria’s Interior Minister

Nigeria's Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has challenged correctional authorities across Africa to critically assess their prison populations, asserting that a significant portion of inmates are held for offenses that do not warrant incarceration.

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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 per cent are offences that do not warrant incarceration.

Speaking at a conference in Abuja, Tunji-Ojo stated that between 30 and 50 percent of offenses committed by inmates do not merit imprisonment. He specifically pointed to Nigeria, where 93 percent of inmates are state offenders, with many incarcerated for minor infractions. "Is your correctional centre rightfully overcrowded? That is the question," he urged.

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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.

Tunji-Ojo shared a personal initiative where he directed officials to review records of inmates held for fines and compensation below a certain amount. This review identified over 4,000 individuals. He questioned the economic logic of imprisoning such offenders, noting that the cost of feeding them annually far exceeds the fines. "I said, what is the sense in this? Because I feed them in a year with more than 10 times the fine," he said. This led to a five percent decongestion of Nigerian correctional centers in a single day.

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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.

Furthermore, the minister reported a dramatic reduction in recidivism in Nigeria's correctional centers, dropping from approximately 13,000 cases annually in 2023 to 1,000 last year. He attributed this success to increased access to education and vocational training. Currently, 62 inmates are pursuing postgraduate studies, 261 are in undergraduate programs, and over 10,000 are enrolled in various educational and rehabilitation initiatives.

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What is the sense in this? Because I feed them in a year with more than 10 times 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 five per cent.