THE PRISON DECONGESTION PROJECT  IN NIGERIA: AN APPRAISAL BY MBANASO IFEYINWA A. LL.B. (Hons.) B.L.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
That the prisons in Nigeria are grossly congested is a fact. Record has it that they are overcrowded to a capacity of as much as 250%. Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison for instance, built for 956 prisoners is occupied by over 2,600 inmates majority of whom are awaiting trial.

There is, and has always been definitely the need to decongest the prisons in Nigeria. Prison overcrowding is a major concern of the Nigerian criminal justice system. Remand prisoners account for a substantial contribution of the problem of congestion in Nigerian prisons. A greater part of awaiting trial detainees in our prisons are held under the holding charge1 and many have spent up to ten years waiting to be tried.

2.0  DECONGESTION PROJECTS

2.1 THE LEGAL AID COUNCIL
The Legal Aid Council is the body that has so far made the major and extensive effort to help the decongestion of prisons in Nigeria.

The Legal Aid Council in the recent past has established several projects and schemes to assuage this congestion problem. The prison project 5000 is one of such projects. It commenced in November 2001 and was executed by the Human Rights Law Service (HURILAWS) a Non Governmental Organisation in collaboration with the Legal Aid Council with the support of another NGO, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). The project was implemented in a number of Nigerian Prisons cutting across the six geo-political zones, chosen as a result of their remand population ratios. The services of lawyers were engaged and releases were made through Bail and fundamental rights applications. The project has since then achieved its goals and has helped to a great extent in the decongestion of prisons.