Justice Iyabo Yerima, Oyo State Chief Judge, freed 40 inmates from Agodi Correctional Centre on Tuesday to ease overcrowding. Represented by Justice Ladiran Akintola, she explained that quarterly inspections had been scheduled for this purpose, though the first-quarter visit was missed owing to judicial workload. After reviewing files, the bench recommended release for prisoners who met its discretionary criteria.
Those let out included the sick, people held on bailable offences and others who had spent over four years in custody. Each departing inmate received a small transport stipend and a warning to stay crime-free. Ibrahim Lawal, an executive of the Ibadan branch of the Nigeria Bar Association, praised the gesture and urged that such inspections become routine. He also condemned cases where warders ignore court release orders, saying the association will sue to end the practice.
Justice Yerima's exercise freed only 40 souls from a facility built for far fewer, exposing how tokenistic Nigeria's decongestion rituals have become. When a chief judge must personally hand out bus fares, the state has confessed that its correctional system is no longer correcting anything.
Behind the ceremony lies a darker arithmetic: people stuck for four years on charges that were bailable from day one, plus others whose real offence is poverty. Oyo's government has not built new courts, funded legal aid or installed a functioning bail protocol; instead it recycles the same inmates through periodic "amnesty" photo-ops.
For families who paid lawyers only to see cases stall, Tuesday's release is a lottery win for 40 households while hundreds keep sleeping on concrete floors. Until trial dates stop depending on the calendar of a single judge, freedom will remain a discretionary gift, not a right.
The episode fits a national pattern: prisons swell, budgets shrink, and the judiciary turns decongestion into a charitable deed rather than a systemic duty.
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