The Lagos State government recently announced the arrest, trial, and sentencing to three months imprisonment of 26 street-connected persons described as Omotaku. Additionally, a further 115 beggars were arrested.
At first glance, this may appear to be a valid law-and-order response to urban disorder. However, when examined through the lens of Nigeria’s correctional realities, this approach raises serious concerns about systemic congestion, justice efficiency, and proportionality.
Nigeria’s correctional facilities are already overwhelmed by awaiting-trial detainees, many of whom are held for minor, non-violent offences. Available data consistently show that over two-thirds of persons in custody are in remand, awaiting determination of their cases by a court of law, a situation that is fundamentally driven not by poverty, weak legal representation, and procedural delays.
Injecting additional low-risk, indigent persons into this system, particularly those whose conduct is rooted in homelessness or economic exclusion, will exacerbate congestion without meaningfully improving public safety.
From an operational standpoint, every new remandee for a petty or status-based offence imposes costs on the Nigerian Correctional Service for transportation, feeding, medical care, and court production.
These resources are already stretched thin, forcing the system to “contain rather than reform.” The result is a vicious cycle where correctional centres become warehouses for social problems better addressed outside the criminal justice pipeline.
Poverty as a Proxy Offence
Begging, street-connected living, and informal survival economies are not inherently criminal acts; they are symptoms of structural inequality, unemployment, mental health gaps, and urban housing failures.
Empirical studies of Nigeria’s correctional population demonstrate that a significant proportion of pre-trial detainees are held for minor, non-violent offences, often for periods longer than the maximum sentence attached to the alleged offence.
In such cases, incarceration functions neither as deterrence nor rehabilitation, but rather as an exacerbator of marginalisation.
Beyond Incarceration: Viable and Lawful Alternatives
Nigeria’s legal framework already provides clear alternatives to custodial responses, many of which remain underutilised. These are outlined below:
1. Community Service and Non-Custodial Sentences
Both the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) and Lagos State’s criminal laws permit community service, restitution, and suspended sentences for minor offences. These options preserve public order without burdening correctional facilities or severing individuals from already fragile livelihoods.
2. Diversion and Social Welfare Pathways
Street-connected persons and beggars should be routed toward social welfare assessments, including housing support, mental health services, vocational training, and rehabilitation programmes. Criminal courts are poorly equipped to resolve social deprivation; welfare institutions are not.
3. Restorative and Problem-Solving Justice Models
Stakeholder dialogues convened by justice sector actors in recent years have repeatedly emphasised the need for people-centred justice that repairs harm, reduces reoffending, and promotes reintegration rather than reflexive punishment.
4. Early Legal Intervention and Duty Solicitor Schemes
Where arrests do occur, immediate access to legal advice can prevent unnecessary remand. Evidence from legal aid and clearing-house models shows that timely representation dramatically reduces pre-trial detention for indigent suspects.
Conclusion: Order Must Not Come at the Cost of Justice
Urban management and public order are legitimate state concerns. But when enforcement strategies rely primarily on incarceration, especially for poverty-driven conduct, they transfer social failures into correctional spaces ill-suited to absorb them.
The solution lies not in widening the net of incarceration, but in deploying the non-custodial, restorative, and welfare-oriented tools the law already provides. Anything less risks deepening a crisis that Nigeria’s correctional system can no longer sustain.
