The recent sentencing of a 29-year-old chef, Moses Ibor, to one month imprisonment by a Dei-Dei Area court in Abuja, for stealing three cartons of Indomie noodles brought to the fore how outmoded some sections of the Penal Code have become. The Judge, Saminu Suleiman, however, gave the convict, who pleaded guilty, an option of N10,000 fine. The three cartons of Indomie which were valued at N21,000 were recovered from the defendant during police investigations.

A 22-year-old Kingsley Isaac was convicted in March 2023 by a Dei-Dei Grade I Area Court in Abuja for stealing two chickens worth N8,000. Just last month, a 19-year-old tailor, Zakari Saleh, was sentenced by a Jos Magistrates Court to three months imprisonment for stealing two tubes of body lotions valued at N43,000. In November 2022, one Adamu Habib was sentenced to four months imprisonment by an Upper Area Court in Karu, Abuja, for stealing two packs of Orbit Gum valued at N12,840.

Although, the convicts are usually given an option of fine, dozens of them who are unable to pay the fines in place of jail terms end up languishing in prison cells, thereby overstretching prison facilities. The fines, which are often beyond what convicts can afford, have rather become an option indirectly denied. A few of the convicts jailed for ‘petty’ criminal offences are sometimes lucky to leave prison cells when NGOs go round correctional centres to pay off the fines for them.

Figures published in January 2023 by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting show that Nigeria with 74,059 inmates is globally the 27th country with the highest number of prisoners. While it ranks seventh on the continent, it leads other countries in the highest number of inmates in West Africa. Prison records from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in 2016, there were 47,702 persons in prison who were incarcerated for stealing. The same crime accounted for more than 50 percent of the entire prison population.

The sentencing of convicts over petty offences is believed to contribute to the huge number of inmates awaiting trial. The cost of feeding inmates is another strong imperative for the review of the existing law. In May 2023, the former Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, declared while inaugurating a 20-bed Hospital at the Maximum-Security Custodial Centre, Port Harcourt, that the federal government spends N1 million annually to cater for one inmate in the country’s correctional facilities. There’s no logic and justification in spending this huge sum on a person that, for instance, stole a Indomie noodles valued at N21,000.

The criminalization and imprisonment of individuals over petty offences reflect the decayed provisions of the law enshrined in the Criminal Code (for Southwest Nigeria) and Penal Code (for Northern Nigeria); two colonial legacies respectively enacted in 1902 and 1960. Their long years of application are extensive enough to reduce their efficacy. Man-made laws, unlike natural laws of the universe, are bound to become archaic as the circumstances of human existence continue to change. Today, the definitions of some crimes are short of the modern dimensions of criminalities. For instance, the definitions of rape under the Penal Code failed to capture sodomy. The case of a 7-year-old Imran Usman, a student of the school for children with disabilities in Kuje, Abuja, who was forced into sodomy was one case that alarmed Nigerians in April 2019.

Similarly, the interpretation of criminal misappropriation and its punishment in the existing law have both become weak and ineffective; allowing criminals to escape sentence. For example, while Section 308 of the Penal Code states, “Whoever dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use any movable property, commits criminal appropriation”, Section 309 of the Penal Code reads, “Whoever commits criminal misappropriation shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years or with fine or with both.” This punishment could have been appropriate when it was a crime for a man to steal another’s goat that had been kept in his possession. The conviction in January 2013 of John Yusuf, a former director in the federal civil service over criminal misappropriation caught public attention not because he pleaded guilty to fraudulently converting N2 billion of police pension funds to private use but because he was sentenced by the court to two years imprisonment with an option to pay a fine of N250,000 only. The weaknesses of archaic laws are exploited to secure a ridiculously mild penalty for a serious crime.

Because of the deplorable prison conditions, convicts jailed for petty offences sometimes come out of prison cells morally worse than they were before conviction. Daily Trust recommends that alternative but effective forms of correction, such as community service, could be deployed instead of imprisonment. This would not only decongest our prisons but shall further take off the huge burden of feeding and caring for thousands of inmates incarcerated over petty offences. Community service may involve clearing of blocked drainages, sweeping of market places or streets, clearing of outgrown bushes around public buildings including hospitals, offices, and cemeteries.

To preserve the essence of justice and ensure unhindered access of citizens to it, it is time for the country’s national assembly to, as a matter of responsibility, review the stale Penal and Criminal Codes.

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