A pioneering book on prisons in West Africa, Colonial Systems of Control: Criminal Justice in Nigeria is the first comprehensive presentation of life inside a West African prison. Chapters by prisoners inside Kirikiri maximum security prison in Lagos, Nigeria are published alongside chapters by scholars and activists. While prisoners document the daily realities and struggles of life inside a Nigerian prison, scholar and human rights activist Viviane Saleh-Hanna provides historical, political, and academic contexts and analyses of the penal system in Nigeria. The European penal models and institutions imported to Nigeria during colonialism are exposed as intrinsically incoherent with the community-based conflict-resolution principles of most African social structures and justice models. This book presents the realities of imprisonment in Nigeria while contextualizing the colonial legacies that have resulted in the inhumane brutalities that are endured on a daily basis. Keywords: Nigeria, West Africa, penal system, maximum-security prison. Published in English.

A pioneering book on prisons in West Africa, Colonial Systems of Control: Criminal Justice in Nigeria is the first comprehensive presentation of life inside a West African prison. Chapters by prisoners inside Kirikiri maximum security prison in Lagos, Nigeria are published alongside chapters by scholars and activists. While prisoners document the daily realities and struggles of life inside a Nigerian prison, scholar and human rights activist Viviane Saleh-Hanna provides historical, political, and academic contexts and analyses of the penal system in Nigeria. The European penal models and institutions imported to Nigeria during colonialism are exposed as intrinsically incoherent with the community-based conflict-resolution principles of most African social structures and justice models. This book presents the realities of imprisonment in Nigeria while contextualizing the colonial legacies that have resulted in the inhumane brutalities that are endured on a daily basis.

The Nigeria Criminal Justice System has not been fairing well from colonial times to date. Its penal system is within the ambit of imprisonment and fine. Looking at socio-economic conditions of Nigerians, those who cannot afford to pay the fine where it is imposed, have no option than to end up in prison. Majority of inmates leave the prison with no savings, no immediate entitlement to unemployment benefits, and few job prospects in addition to other problems related to life after prison. It is based on these identified problems that inform this study. The problems identified are more common among developing nations particularly in African. The work represent magnificent feat of synthesis in criminal justice system as a whole. The author have resourceful confronted the inherent problems in Nigeria criminal justice system, enough to excite the readers to reflect on our judicial system in order to understand the present predicament in our criminal justice system and anticipate the future. This work is an essential reading not only for students of criminology, sociology, government, but also for those sincerely concern with development in criminal law and criminal justice system.

CONTENTS.

The book examined the concept of plea bargaining under the Nigeria criminal justice system. Plea begins as practiced today in Nigeria was not known or provided for in any Nigeria statues before the Economic and Financial crimes commission was established through the provision of section 1 of the Economic and Financial crimes commission (Establishment) Acts, 2004. Plea bargain was only seen for the first time after the establishment of the commission in 2004 under the administration of Chief Olusegun Obasenjo as the president of Nigeria. The application of plea bargain by the Economic and Financial Crime commission is usually based on the provision of section 14(2) of the enabling law that gives the Commission power to compound any offence punishable under the act of accepting the sum of money.

Preface.