Discussions about prison congestion in Nigeria often begin and end with the courts or the correctional system. Yet, as with many complex justice challenges, the reality is more layered. Congestion is not the result of a single failure point, but of accumulated pressures across an overstretched system. One of the quieter intersections in this chain lies at the stage of prosecutorial review, particularly the issuance of legal advice by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
This conversation benefits from care and balance. The DPP’s office is not a peripheral actor. It is a central safeguard of legality and fairness. Any reflection on delays must therefore be grounded in empathy for institutional constraints, alongside attention to the lived experiences of those affected downstream.
A Lived Experience from Pre-Trial Detention
A. was arrested following a dispute that escalated into criminal allegations. A. was taken into custody and later remanded. The police investigation concluded, and the case file was forwarded for legal advice.
Months passed. Each court appearance ended with the same update: “The file is still with the DPP.”
For A., this meant continued detention without clarity. There was no formal charge, no trial date, and no clear sense of what would come next. For his family, it meant financial strain and uncertainty. For the system, it meant one more person occupying limited custodial space while waiting for a necessary prosecutorial decision.
Lived experiences like this do not serve merely to assign blame to a single actor. Rather, they help to underscore the multi-sectoral nature of the challenges in the justice sector, underlining how systemic failures exact a tremendous cost in human suffering.
Prison Congestion as a Pre-Trial Reality
Data consistently show that Nigeria’s correctional centres are populated largely by awaiting-trial detainees. In many facilities, unconvicted persons make up the majority of inmates. Studies and official reports confirm that prison congestion is driven primarily by pre-trial processes, not by sentencing severity.
Pre-trial detention is intended to be temporary and exceptional. Yet when decision-making slows anywhere along the justice chain, remand can quietly become prolonged detention.
The DPP’s Role and the Weight It Carries
The DPP performs one of the most demanding functions in the criminal justice system. Reviewing police case files, assessing evidentiary sufficiency, ensuring compliance with the law, and deciding whether a matter should proceed to court are tasks that protect both defendants and the integrity of prosecutions.
These responsibilities are exercised under significant pressure. DPP offices often contend with high volumes of case files, limited prosecutorial staff, investigations that require clarification or further work, and competing institutional demands and public expectations.
Within this context, delays are frequently the result of capacity strain rather than inaction. Comparative research across Africa highlights similar challenges in prosecutorial systems operating within resource-constrained environments.
Recognising these realities is essential if reform efforts are to be constructive and sustainable.
When System Pressure Meets Lived Experience
While institutional pressures are real, their effects are felt most acutely by people in custody. For awaiting-trial detainees, time spent waiting for prosecutorial advice is time spent deprived of liberty, often without clear information about progress or timelines.
This dynamic was evident during the Social Justice Day engagement held at Ikoyi Correctional Centre in February 2025. Several participants spoke about cases pending legal advice, describing uncertainty rather than anger. The uncertainty centred on whether their cases were moving forward at all.
The engagement, organised by Centre for Legal Support and Inmate Rehabilitation (CELSIR) in partnership with Kenna Partners, created space for listening rather than accusation. It reinforced a key insight: administrative delay is experienced as suspended life by those in detention .
Why This Conversation Matters
Prison decongestion efforts often focus on visible pressure points such as court backlogs and overcrowded cells. Yet prosecutorial review sits at a critical but less visible junction between arrest and trial. When this junction is adequately resourced and well coordinated, it filters cases efficiently and protects rights. When it is overwhelmed, congestion emerges as an unintended consequence.
Stakeholder dialogues, including those held around International Human Rights Day 2025, have already acknowledged that strengthening prosecutorial capacity is a shared responsibility across the justice sector, not a critique of prosecutorial judgment.
Toward Supportive, Collaborative Responses
A constructive path forward centres on supporting the DPP to do its work more effectively while reducing unnecessary detention. This may include investment in prosecutorial staffing and training, digitised and trackable case review systems, clear and jointly agreed timelines for legal advice in custodial cases, stronger coordination between investigators, prosecutors, and courts, and periodic review of long-pending files where suspects remain in custody.
These measures are not about accelerating prosecutions at all costs. They are about aligning fairness, efficiency, and human dignity.
Conclusion
Prison congestion in Nigeria reflects the cumulative strain of a justice system doing more than its current capacity allows. The DPP’s office stands at the centre of this strain, carrying the responsibility of safeguarding legal standards while operating under intense workload pressures.
Approaching this issue with empathy for both justice-impacted persons and justice institutions creates space for reform that is collaborative rather than confrontational. When lived experience and institutional reality are considered together, solutions become not only more effective, but more humane.
