This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the Pan-
African News Wire

KADUNA, 11 January (IRIN) - As visitors approach the death
row block at Kaduna's central prison in northern Nigeria, a
sea of hands waving tin cups automatically jerk through the
bars of the dark cells.

"Get back!" shouts the prison guard at the 118 detainees
crammed inside a dilapidated building originally meant to
house 33. Up to three inmates live in less than four square
metres of space. An overpowering stench of urine and mould
billows out into the courtyard.

In the turmoil of the shouts some of the prisoners draw back
to their spots on a tattered mat on the floor that aside from
a few plastic bowls is the only object in the cell.

But the guard is jumpy and cuts short the visit, prohibiting
any further interaction with the detainees.

Rights organisations working in Nigerian prisons - and even
prison officials themselves - say the conditions of death row
inmates do not fulfil even minimum international human rights
standards.

In Kaduna prison, death row inmates are locked up all day
long, said Festus Okoye, executive director of Human Rights
Monitor (HRM), a group based in the northern city.

"They are allowed out only rarely, for a few minutes, one by
one," he said. Meanwhile some prisoners collect the buckets
used as toilets.

Most of the death row inmates are utterly alone and never
receive visitors - their families living too far away and
having abandoned them for fear of being associated with their
crimes, rights group sources say. Some simply cannot pay
the 'visiting rights' fee charged by the wardens.

Nigeria this year acknowledged the sorry state of its jails,
announcing plans to free some 25,000 inmates still awaiting
trial - some for as long as 10 years - in a bid to relieve
overcrowding and bad conditions.

The move could ease conditions for those left waiting on
death row for years. Since Nigeria legalised capital
punishment in 1999, only one prisoner has been executed by
the state in northern Nigeria, with authorities openly
reticent to carry through with executions, according to HRM.

Nigeria countrywide has 548 prisoners awaiting capital
punishment - 10 of them women - among a total 40,000
detainees, according to Ernest Ogbozor of Prisoners
Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA), Nigeria's largest
prisoners' rights organisation.

Under Nigerian law, crimes punishable by death include armed
robbery, murder and treason. Islamic Sharia law, in force in
12 northern Nigerian states, also calls for the death penalty
in other crimes such as adultery.

If conditions for death row inmates are harsh, they are
hardly any better for other prisoners. For the sick and weak,
incarceration can be tantamount to a sentence to death.

"The two main problems in Nigerian prisons are overpopulation
and lack of food," said Hassan Saidi Labo, assistant to
Nigeria's prison inspector general.

Kaduna is a clear example. In December 2005, 957 detainees
were crammed in 10 buildings designed for about 550 people.

Labo says some prisons hold up to four times their capacity.

In such conditions, just surviving is a daily battle,
according to 54-year-old Felix Obi who was condemned to 27
years in prison in 1986 for drug trafficking. He spent 13
years and three months behind bars in the economic capital,
Lagos, before benefiting from an amnesty in 1999.

"You fight for a scrap of blanket, a piece of soap, a bit of
food or medicine if you get sick," said Obi, who now works
with PRAWA.

"Prisoners fight for space on the floor to sleep, they fight
not to become depressed, and not to be victims of violence.
They fight to survive."

Monitoring by outside groups has had some impact. Since
prisons were opened to religious and humanitarian
organisations more than 10 years ago, the prison death rate
has fallen from 1,500 per year in the late 1980s to 89 deaths
in 2003, according to authorities.

Still the risk of death in prison remains high, particularly
because of lack of food, said Harp Damulak, the Kaduna prison
hospital doctor.

The daily ration generally consists of a bowl of beans in the
morning then cassava in the afternoon and evening. Prisons
have a budget of 150 Naira (US $1.15) per prisoner per day.

But this small amount does not necessarily get to all
prisoners. Supply is in the hands of subcontractors who -
poorly paid, acknowledge prison officials - sometimes dip
into the goods, according to PRAWA and HRM.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime says a prison employee earns
about 6,000 Naira ($45) per month at the start, earning a
maximum of about 40,000 Naira monthly at the end of a career.
As a consequence corruption is common.

Lack of food moreover aggravates already poor hygiene
conditions. Damulak said that malnutrition makes prisoners
highly vulnerable to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis
or skin diseases caused by lack of hygiene.

The situation is the same for women inmates in Kaduna prison,
where 18 women live in two cells, sleeping on iron beds
stacked one atop another, some without mattresses. The
bathroom has long been without running water.

"We are devoured by mosquitoes, we all suffer malaria but
don't have bed nets and the hospital has no medicine except
paracetamol," said Zainab, 32, who has been incarcerated
since April. "There is nothing. Even sanitary napkins - we
have to share one between two women every month, or even
every two months."

Prison conditions weigh heavily on the detainees, often
causing depression and other psychological problems,
according to Damulak. And prison personnel are not trained to
handle such issues, he said.

To survive in their environment, some prisoners have taken
things into their own hands.

"They have created a veritable government," HRM's Okoye
said. "One prisoner is president, another police chief,
another head of justice." He added that some prison officials
see the initiative as a positive thing because it helps
foster order in the institutions.

Former prisoner Obi said, "Some [prison 'leaders'] invent
rules that are impossible to follow." Punishment generally
comes in the form of an order to do chores, such as washing
the clothes of 'chiefs,' but often prisoners pay for misdeeds
by being beaten or even sexually assaulted.

Despite efforts by inmates to impose some sort of
organisation, prison riots are common, PRAWA's Ogbozor said.

"In the past six months we have seen five riots in prisons
across the country - all linked mostly to the lack of food
for detainees."

Under the recently announced plan to release prisoners, those
who have spent three to 10 years awaiting trial will have
their cases reviewed for immediate release. Also eligible
will be the elderly, the terminally ill and those with HIV,
as well as people locked up for longer than the prospective
sentence for their crime.

Among those who have languished in prisons for years, human
rights activists say, are some who were picked up by mistake
or for very minor infractions and simply could not pay a
fine.