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Nigeria’s overcrowded prisons are often portrayed as a crime problem. In reality, they are increasingly a symptom of something much more worrying: the abuse of state power.
Activist Omoyele Sowore’s recent account of his time in Kuje Correctional Center reminds us that many people behind bars are not there because they have been found guilty of any crime. They are there because the criminal justice system has become a convenient tool for political repression, personal revenge, abuse of police powers and denial of justice.
Sowore’s experience was not simply about his own incarceration. It highlighted the stories of many other people trapped in a system where imprisonment became a punishment long before conviction.
He said he met Haruna Garba Gololo, who was reportedly sent to prison following a case involving Senate President Godswill Akpabio. Although Gololo was granted bail, he remained in prison for weeks because he could not meet the bail conditions.
He also met David Nwokorie, who was allegedly arrested by the Nigerian police after a failed relationship with the daughter of a retired deputy inspector general of police. After spending almost four months in prison, he was only granted bail on conditions that required a level 16 civil servant and a colonel in the Nigerian Army as sureties, conditions that are out of reach of the vast majority of Nigerians.
Then there is the irony of the Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, publicly complaining that about 93% of inmates in Nigeria’s correctional centers are awaiting trial, while one critic, Emorioloye Owolemi, reportedly spent months in prison after being prosecuted for alleged cyberstalking.
Sowore himself was imprisoned by the federal government under President Bola Tinubu. Whatever one’s views on politics, his experience demonstrates how easily criminal law can be weaponized against critics and how pre-trial detention has become a tool of punishment rather than a measure of last resort.
Most importantly, Sowore revealed that Kuje Correctional Center houses 1,115 inmates, of which 817 are awaiting trial. Forty-seven are reportedly suffering from tuberculosis. These figures should shock every Nigerian. They highlight not only prison congestion, but a struggling justice system.
The tragedy, however, begins long before anyone enters prison.
It begins in police custody.
Our research at the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Center (RULAAC), conducted in multiple states, consistently documents arbitrary arrests, prolonged detentions, torture, denial of access to lawyers and family members, extortion, fabricated evidence, and the manipulation of criminal investigations to satisfy influential whistleblowers or silence perceived opponents.
Many detainees spend weeks or months in police cells before being brought to court. Others are hastily charged with flimsy or concocted charges simply to obtain a detention order that legitimizes illegal detention. Once detained in pre-trial detention, they disappear into the ever-growing population of pre-trial detainees.
This is how police abuse fuels prison congestion.
This is how political repression fills correctional centers.
This is how poverty is criminalized.
For suspects who are wealthy or have political connections, arrest often leads to immediate bail and vigorous legal representation. For ordinary Nigerians, arrest often marks the beginning of an ordeal that can last months or years, regardless of guilt or innocence. Justice becomes a privilege reserved for those with influence, while detention becomes the fate of those without it.
The consequences extend beyond the prison walls. Families lose breadwinners. Businesses collapse. Children drop out of school. Victims experience trauma and stigmatization even when they are eventually discharged or acquitted. Many emerge from prison physically ill, psychologically damaged and financially ruined for crimes they may never have committed.
This is not simply a human rights crisis. It is a crisis of the rule of law.
The Constitution guarantees personal freedom and presupposes the innocence of every accused until proven guilty. Such safeguards become meaningless when police abuse their powers of arrest, prosecutors prosecute frivolous cases, courts impose impossible bail conditions, and correctional centers become warehouses for legally innocent citizens.
The solution is not simply to build more prisons or periodically release prisoners. Such measures simply treat the symptoms.
Nigeria must address the source of the problem.
Police officers responsible for arbitrary arrests, torture, extortion or prolonged unlawful detention must be held personally accountable. Investigations must be guided by evidence rather than dictated by political influence or private interests. Prosecutors must reject cases without merit. Courts must ensure that bail conditions are reasonable, accessible and consistent with the constitutional presumption of innocence. Legal aid and enforcement mechanisms must be strengthened so that poverty no longer determines who remains behind bars.
More importantly, governments must stop using the criminal justice system to intimidate critics, settle political scores, or protect the interests of the powerful.
The measure of a democracy is not how it treats influential people but how it protects the rights of the common citizen. A state that regularly imprisons people before proving them guilty ceases to uphold the rule of law; begins to govern through fear.
Sowore’s account should therefore not be dismissed as another political controversy. It’s a warning. Behind every prison congestion statistic is a human being whose freedom may have been taken away not by justice, but by the abuse of power.
Until Nigeria reforms the police, reduces political interference in law enforcement, and restores constitutional guarantees throughout the criminal justice process, our prisons will remain crowded, not just with alleged criminals, but with victims of a system that too often confuses power with justice.
By Okechukwu Nwanguma is
Executive Director, Rule of Law and Accountability Center (RULAAC)
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