November 17, 2019

Fear is a weapon the bad guys use to put everybody to silence. Most Nigerians understand that many police officers in the Nigerian police force have gone rogue. But the situation is actually worse. There are many deadly criminals in the police force. They are the kidnappers. They are the armed robbers. They are the assassins. They put fear in you and control you by that. Abattoir secret prison in Abuja is just one of the evil machinations of the police. Even the IG may not understand all that is going on in Abattoir. We have heard of cases where the policemen would hide some Abattoir inmates when they knew the IGP was visiting. In other words, it is not only the judges they hide inmates from. They have done it to an IGP and many external visitors like human rights groups and Red Cross. How do they hide hundreds of people? We know that many people would wonder: How can they hide so many people? This is how they do it:  The area known as Abattoir is a large area located on a rocky landspace. There is no drive-through or access. It is like going into a hill that you cannot drive through and you have to exit through the same gate you came in through. When you enter the area called abattoir, you will see only the offices toward the front left. Deep in the hill behind the offices, toward the right, is a monstrous building. You can't see anything from outside looking in. That is the main Abattoir detention cell. That cell contains about 1000 detainees at any given time. Nobody sees those detainees, except the police and few privileged people. It is a highly secure and highly controlled facility. Nobody goes to that building unless you are a detainee being led to the cell or you are one of the officers that work there. There are many other buildings and spaces hidden behind the offices. Those are not accessible to visitors either. Whenever a human right group comes to see things in Abattoir, normally they would come on a schedule. They normally would arrive by 10am to 12noon. Early that morning, the police would come to Abattoir cell and march all physically able detainees to the buildings behind the offices to the left. Those who are too weak to walk would be carried by other inmates. These would be kept in that place until the visitors had left. Of course, they would not take every detainee out of the cell. Otherwise, that would look suspicious. They will leave some inmates, about 50, usually those that are physically able and not showing any visible torture injuries and those who have been in detention for only a few weeks. Those are the ones the visitors will meet. Even at that, the police will warn those detainees not to say anything outside what they are told to say. The police will be with the visitors each time they are talking to a detainee. If an inmate would try to tip the visitors off, that will be the end of his life. We heard of a detainee who dared to reveal the truth about his case. The detainee had been in detention for more than one year. The officer handling his case told him to say he had been in detention for only two weeks. But when the visitors asked him, he told them he had been in detention for 14 months. The visitors screamed and requested that the man be freed or charged to court. Because of his case, the visitors scheduled to come back after one month. When they came back and asked, they were told that the man had been released as they requested. They left satisfied. Meanwhile, the man was killed for not doing as he was told.   Abattoir is certainly not the only such secret prison or killing ground used by the Nigerian police. DPA knows there are more. But Nigerians must be aware of the existence of such places. Human civilization has gone beyond the point where we would keep quiet out of fear. DPA will do whatever is possible to expose Abattoir and other secret prisons. We have videos and pictures of Abattoir. We have made these pictures available to critical individuals within and outside Nigeria. We made them part of our petitions to international agencies and the diplomatic community and foreign news agencies.   DPA just has to expose Abattoir in order to stop the atrocities. You will recall that in October of 2018, when we first tried to expose Abattoir, Mr. Bala Ciroma, (Commissioner of Police for Abuja) and Mr. Jimoh Moshood (then the Police PRO) looked the world in the yes and denied the existence of Abattoir, and they falsely accused DPA Founder of being a criminal. Now, let the world know the role of these police officers in the human slaughter that has occurred in Abattoir.   Having our Founder in detention is not enough to stop DPA. Indeed, DPA operations do not depend on the Founder. We can operate from our overseas locations once we have gathered the evidence in Nigeria.

When DPA started sending out petitions against police atrocities in Abattoir on 7th October, 2019, we did not initially send any to the Chief Judge of FCT Abuja. Rather, we sent to the National Assembly (the House of Rep and the Senate). We sent to the Presidency (President and Vice President). We sent to the Attorney General and the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the IG of police, but of course we sent to major international agencies and foreign governments.. We are not exactly sure how our petition made it to the Chief Judge of Abuja. But because our petition hammered on Abattoir atrocities either the Attorney General or the Chief Justice or someone in the presidency forwarded it to the attention of the Chief Judge, who liaised with the chief Magistrate. We suspect that the Attorney General might be at least one of those who contacted the Chief Judge. The reason we suspect the Attorney General is that the same week the Chief Judge first tried to visit Abattoir,  Justice Kekemeke of the High Court of the FCT had an occasion to be angry with the police in his court. The Judge tried to adjourn a trial for 2 days. The police prosecutor asked for one month. The judge got very angry and said to the police: "You people don't know what is happening. Everything has changed. The Chief Judge is breathing down our throats for us to expedite all these cases". He went on to say that pressure was also coming from the Attorney General's office. He further told the police that the accused people had been in prison and that he would not allow him an adjournment of longer than one week. The incident in Justice Kekemeke court occurred the 3rd week of October. That was the week the Chief Judge initially visited Abattoir. He announced he was coming and the police knew exactly when he was coming. So, the police managed to move the inmates out of the cells. As early as 5am, the police moved the inmates out of the cell. When the Chief Judge entered Abattoir, he could not see the inmates that were shown in the Abattoir pictures DPA attached to its petitions. That caused the Chief Judge to ask repeatedly if there were not other inmates. One of the few inmates, the police purposefully left behind told the Chief judge that the inmates were taken away and hidden that morning. The Chief Judge understood. He told them not to worry that he knew what to do. The Chief Judge left with his team. On Monday, 4th November, 2019, the chief Judge came back unannounced with a team of judges and magistrates - more than 10 of them. They arrived around 8:30am and they went straight to the Abattoir cells. They took the police by surprise. This time they saw worse than was shown on the pictures submitted by DPA. They saw hundreds of men emaciated to skeleton out of hunger. They saw people with torture injuries. The stench, the suffering was unbearable. Some of the detainees were too weak to stand on their feet. The judges could not believe what they saw. Tears were seen trickling down the faces of some of the judges. The Chief Judge and his team immediately declared the place a mobile court and started issuing warrants for the detainees to be taken to the prisons where they could at least have food to eat and live. Some who were strong enough to go home were set free, depending on their stories. This is a landmark victory for us, DPA members. But we must not relax yet. We still have a long way to go. When the police made the mistake of detaining Emeka Ugwuonye in Abattoir in July of 2018 for just a weekend, Emeka saw Abattoir and he swore to tell the world about Abattoir. He tried by making a documentary on Abattoir. The police decided to silence him the way they know best. So, they charged him with murder of someone he didn't even know was in existence. Today, we know that the corrupt police behind Abattoir were not able to cover up Abattoir. We demand for justice. We demand for a public hearing. Let the families of those killed in Abattoir come forward and talk about their pains. The victims deserve justice and healing.

Currently, the cost of transporting prison inmates from various correctional facilities to the various courts for trials is borne by the Prison Service (Correctional Service).

Who are the inmates that have to be transported to courts for trial? These are people that the courts failed to admit to bail. They are called the untried inmates or awaiting trial inmates. In the earlier part of our report, we have shown that the courts have been largely reckless, irrational and inefficient in the manner they handle bail hearings, which led to the fact that 80% of prison inmates are awaiting trial cases. The reckless and dysfunctional manner in which judges deal with bail applications has profound cost implications. First, it means that 80% of prison inmates needs to be transported to court at somebody's expense. This requires each correction center to maintain a fleet of vehicles, personnel and security for the movement of inmates to and from courts each day. We do not have precise cost figures. But apart from feeding the inmates, the costs of taking them to court is probably the second highest expenditure category in the recurrent part of the prisons budget. Assuming that the cost per annum of transporting prisoners to court in the FCT Abuja area is 500 million naira, cutting in half the number of awaiting trial inmates will save 250 million naira in Abuja alone. That amount can go toward better and improved conditions of service for prison staff, and better facilities for reforming convicted inmates. Another manner in which the courts impose logistical costs on the prisons is by inordinate delays of trials. It compounds the problem of mishandling of bail applications. That is: the court has remanded a person in prison who ought to have been on bail. And then by failing to try the person in a timely manner, the court prolongs the period of time the person is incarcerated. This compounds the associated costs. We can extrapolate to the wider problems caused by the failings of the judiciary in this regard such as the general cost of keeping inmates in correctional facilities for a long time. However, we limit our analysis here to the cost of transporting inmates to courts for their trial. The question here is: Where do you place the cost of the inefficient behavior of the judiciary? At present, that cost is placed on the prisons. It is always inefficient when costs are not located in the same place as the source of the action or decision that gave rise to the costs. Unless the agency that makes the cost decisions is made to bear the cost, the decisions cannot be efficiently made. If the FCT judiciary is made to bear the 500 million estimated annual cost of transporting inmates from prison to courts, the attitude of the courts toward bail applications will change dramatically. If the cost of transporting inmates to courts were made to compete with the cost of welfare and vacation and medical allowances of judges, the judiciary will immediately reassess its attitude toward bail applications and the length of time it takes a court to conclude a standard case. Currently, some prisons don't have vehicles to take inmates to courts. Keffi prison, for instance, takes inmates to courts only twice a week. The courts are not aware of this. So, on a day the prison is not able to bring an inmate to court, the judge will just adjourn the case to next month. But the date of the next adjournment may be another day the prison will not have a vehicle. This could go on for six months without the prisoner ever being to court. But assuming it is the court that arranges the transportation of the inmate, this sort of waste will likely not occur. DPA therefore suggests changes that will be necessary to make the courts bear the cost of bringing to court the person they could not release on bail. When a person has not been convicted, he belongs to the courts and not to the prisons. It should be the responsibility of the courts to bring the person from prison to court and back until the end of his trial or until the court grants him bail. This is what obtains in some other countries including Britain. This recommendation calls for a redefinition of the relationship between the courts and the prisons. Currently, the prisons are blaming the courts for congestion and costs of transporting inmates to courts, and the courts are blaming the prisons for either not bringing the inmates to courts for trials or for not bringing them on time. This situation will change if the courts bear the cost of its actions and decisions in this regard. This will lead to greater efficiency and improved justice in Nigeria. By the Due Process Advocates Foundation (DPA).