Viviane Saleh-Hanna - Colonial Systems of Control: Criminal Justice in Nigeria

Internationally, the search for solutions to social conflict has resulted in reconsideration of traditional approaches and the development of innovative harm reduction based analyses that extend beyond the narrow focus of conventional criminology. Contemporary alternative perspectives in criminology range from critical analyses of current punitive justice policies and practices to explorations of non-punitive approaches such as peacemaking, transformative justice, and penal abolition.

This collection welcomes a range of theoretical and practice-based contributions that challenge established notions of punitive justice: from pre-colonial approaches (e.g. Aboriginal Healing), ethnographic studies, and harm reduction models to radical critiques of contemporary models of social control.

The collection publishes works in both English and French.

Collection Editor
Robert Gaucher

BY VIVIANE SALEH-HANNA

With contributions by

Chris Affor

Uju Agomoh

Biko Agozino

Clever Akporherhe

Sylvester Monday Anagaba

O. Oko Elechi

Osa Eribo

Mechthild Nagel

Igho Odibo

Julia Sudbury

Chukwuma Ume

University of Ottawa Press 2008

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA
CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Colonial systems of control: criminal justice in Nigeria / by Viviane Saleh-Hanna; with contributions by Chris Affor [et al.].

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7766-0666-8

1. Criminal justice, Administration of--Nigeria. 2. Imprisonment--Nigeria. 3. Prisoners--Civil rights--Nigeria. 4. Prisoners--Nigeria--Biography. 5. Alternatives to imprisonment--Nigeria. 6. Imperialism. I. Saleh-Hanna, Viviane, 1976- II. Affor, Chris

KTA3800.C65 2008 365.9669 C2008-901473-1

Published by the University of Ottawa Press, 2008

542 King Edward Avenue

Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5

www.uopress.uottawa.ca

The University of Ottawa Press acknowledges with gratitude the support extended to its publishing list by Heritage Canada through its Book Publishing Industry Development Program, by the Canada Council for the Arts, by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and by the University of Ottawa.

In Loving Memory of

Sylvester Monday Anagaba - a.k.a. Motivating Monday-

and the many others who perish behind the violent walls of
colonial prisons around the globe

Chris Affor wrote My Story and A Tribute to Solidarity: My Oasis while serving time in Kirikiri maximum security prison in Lagos State, Nigeria. He was a member of the PRAWA programme, which works to build solidarity among prisoners. Chris continues to serve time on awaiting-trial holding charges.

Uju Agomoh has a PhD in criminology and prison studies (University of Ibadan, Nigeria), an MPhil degree in Criminology from the University of Cambridge, England, and an LLB from the University of London (Queen Mary and Westfi eld College). She is involved in monitoring human rights violations within African penal systems. Her work includes training, research, documentation, and provision of support services to prisoners, ex-prisoners, torture survivors, and their families. She has undertaken prison assessment visits in over 100 prisons in Nigeria, South Africa, The Gambia, and Rwanda. Her work has facilitated training over 5,000 prison guards in good prison practice and international human rights standards for the treatment of prisoners in Ghana and Nigeria. She is the founder and executive director of a human rights non-governmental organization, Prisoners Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA), with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. She was appointed in July 2000 as a federal commissioner and member of the Governing Council of the National Human Rights Commission in Nigeria. She is the special rapporteur on police, prison, and other centres of detention for the Nigerian Human Rights Commission and a member of the Nigerian Presidential Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy.

Biko Agozino is a professor of sociology, Coordinator of the Criminology Unit and the Acting Head of Behavioral Sciences at The Univerisity of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. His teaching and research interests include crime and social order, research methods, theoretical criminology, race-class-gender articulation, sociology, social statistics, law and popular culture, and comparative justice systems. His books include Black Women and the Criminal Justice System (1997); Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Migration Research (edited, 2000); Nigeria: Democratising a Militarised Civil Society (coauthored, 2001); Counter-Colonial Criminology (2003); and Pan African Issues in Crime and Justice (coedited, 2004). He was educated at the University of Edinburgh (PhD), the University of Cambridge (MPhil), and the University of Calabar (BSc). He is the series editor for the Ashgate Publishers Interdisciplinary Research Series in Ethnic, Gender, and Class Relations and the editor-in-chief of the African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies.

Clever Akporherhe wrote My Nigerian Prison Experience after being released from Kirikiri medium security prison. These experiences describe his time as a convicted prisoner. Since then Clever has been arrested by the Nigerian Police Force and is currently serving time in Kirikiri medium security prison on awaiting-trial holding charges. He has orally communicated that prison conditions experienced by awaiting-trial prisoners are far worse than those he experienced as a convicted prisoner.