Amid growing concerns about the number of persons awaiting trial and prison congestion in Nigeria, the Human Rights Law Service (HURILAWS) has filed a class action suit on behalf of the 46,351 persons it said are awaiting trial in prisons across the country.

The Attorney General of the Federation, the Administration of Justice Commission, the Administration of Justice Monitoring Committee and the Comptroller-General of Prisons are all defendants in the suit.

HURILAWS is asking the court to compel the defendants to discharge their statutory function, which is to supervise the administration of justice in Nigeria by ensuring that criminal matters are speedily dealt with.

It also wants the congestion of criminal cases in court and the congestion of prisons to be drastically reduced.

Specifically, the group is seeking among other things, “A Declaration that the condition of Awaiting Trial Persons in Nigerian Prisons violates their Fundamental Rights to dignity of human person, personal liberty and fair hearing guaranteed by Sections 34, 35 & 36 (2), (4) and (6) (c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended.”

It also wants “a declaration that the long detention of awaiting trial persons in Nigerian prisons violates the fundamental rights of awaiting trial persons to personal liberty guaranteed by Section 35 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended”.

Furthermore, it wants the court to declare that “the condition of Nigerian prisons is not proper for human habitation and therefore violates the fundamental rights of awaiting trial persons to the dignity of the human person guaranteed by Section 34 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended”.

The rights groups blamed the high number of persons awaiting trial in the country on the failure of the defendants to properly discharge their statutory functions by allowing criminal trials to get stalled due to unavailability of prosecution witnesses; investigating police officers (IPOs); missing case files; and unavailability of DPP advice, etc.

“The result is that on March 6, 2017, the total inmates’ population stands at 63, 259. Out of this number, 46,351 are Awaiting Trial Persons and the remaining 21,903 are convicted,” HURILAWS said.

It decried the detention of people awaiting trial in prisons and under terrible conditions with some of such people detained for up to 16 years.

“Although Awaiting trial persons are presumed innocent they detained in old and dilapidated prisons with poor sanitary conditions. The prison condition is harsh and life threatening, diseases are pervasive, there are inadequate medical and transport facilities,” it said.

According to the rights group, a recently released National Human Rights Commission’s 2012 Prison Audit report indicate that a total of 18,657 persons had spent three months and above awaiting trial in prisons across the country.

It said a breakdown of the figure shows that 1,150 detainees had spent three months and above awaiting trial in the various prisons across the North East with Bauchi holding 313.

In the South East, there were 4,296 out of which 1,380 were in the Owerri Prison. There were 2,929 in the South West, with 694 found in the Agodi Prison; 6,476 were in the South-South out of which 2,501 were in the Port Harcourt Prison.

In the North West, there were 2,000 inmates with MSP Gushau having 404, while the North Central had 1,806.