There has been a sharp drop in the number of suspects and convicts admitted into Nigeria’s prisons, figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics show.
While the number of prisoner for murder cases was 7172 in 2013 and 8560 in 2014, the number crashed to 2658 in the first six months of 2015.
The number of inmates admitted for abduction also fell from 1689 in 2013, 1349 in 2014 and 347 in the first half of 2015.
The offences of stealing and robbery recorded the biggest fall.
In 2013, 50,436 people, with women accounting for 2747, were jailed or remanded for stealing. The number dropped to 46, 876 in 2014. But by mid 2015, 12,991 cases had been recorded.
Robbery had 13,216 inmates in 2013, 8505 in 2014 and 2870 in the first six months of 2015.
The NBS statistics did not reflect appreciable fall with armed robbery offences. While 11,858 people were jailed in 2013, 10,249 were jailed in 2014. In the first half of 2015 however, 4867 people had been incarcerated close to 50 per cent of 2014 figure, with 131 of them being women.
NBS data further showed that Nigerian men stay more in jail than the womenfolk. In 2013, men incarcerated were 151, 052 men as against 7,844women. In 2014,the number of men jailed declined to 132,008, with women recording 6834.
But figures up till June 2015 show that 43, 457 men were jailed, as against 2305 women.
Nigeria’s prisons spread in all the 36 states and Abuja can hold close to 50,000 people, indicating that the prisons must really be filled if the inmates spend an average of 3 years in the three years 30 months under review.
Read the full data of the NBS here: NBS Prison Figures