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By Okechukwu Nwanguma
My attention was recently drawn to a heartbreaking report by Crime Facts about Mr. John Gift Tobia — a man who just regained his freedom after spending eight years and four months in the Port Harcourt Correctional Centre without trial. His story is not an isolated case, and that is what makes it even more disturbing.
Mr. Tobia was arrested in 2017 by the Nigeria Police at Rumuokoro Junction, Port Harcourt, in the aftermath of a robbery incident he knew nothing about. Others arrested alongside him were bailed and released. But Tobia, poor and without connections, could not afford the “price tag” often placed on freedom. His inability to pay a bribe or find someone to stand for him led to a fate no citizen should ever endure in a democratic society: he was arraigned before a magistrate and remanded in prison. No trial ever followed.
For over eight years, Mr. Tobia remained in limbo — forgotten by the system that should protect him, cut off from justice simply because he was poor. It took the compassion and intervention of a human rights lawyer, Hope Azinuchi Azeru-Oziri, who took up his case pro bono, to finally secure his release. The court rightly declared his prolonged detention illegal and immoral. But where does Mr. Tobia go from here? What becomes of the lost years?
This case raises fundamental questions about the deep rot in our criminal justice system and its disproportionate impact on poor Nigerians. Statistics continue to show that over 70% of inmates in Nigeria’s correctional centres are awaiting trial. Many of them, like Tobia, are victims of systemic dysfunction, arrested arbitrarily and dumped in prison — not because they are guilty, but because they are poor.
This is a human rights crisis masquerading as law enforcement.
How can a man be detained for nearly a decade without trial, without evidence, and without anyone in the system raising alarm? Where are the checks? Where is the accountability? It is a damning indictment of a system that punishes poverty more than it punishes crime.
The Nigeria Police Force must answer for this. The magistrate who remanded Mr. Tobia without ensuring he was brought back to court must answer for this. The prison authorities who saw him every day and did nothing must answer for this. These are not unfortunate oversights — they are acts of negligence and complicity.
It is not enough to celebrate Mr. Tobia’s release. We must demand justice beyond freedom.
Justice must include compensation for the trauma and lost years. Justice must include disciplinary action against the officers and judicial officials who failed in their duties. Justice must include systemic reforms to end this cycle of abuse.
As one Nigerian, Otis Horsfall, rightly said, “We must not only celebrate his freedom but strongly condemn the actions of the Nigeria Police Force. Enough of wasting the meaningful life and times of people without justification.”
Another, Zenike Abiodun, echoed the call for compensation: “How I wish the court can ask the police to pay damages… so that it will serve as a deterrent for other police and judicial officers.”
They are right. Freedom without justice is not enough.
We need urgent reforms to ensure:
Mandatory periodic reviews of all remand cases.
Strict enforcement of the constitutional right to trial within a reasonable time.
Accountability frameworks for police and judicial officers who enable arbitrary detention.
Public defenders to represent indigent detainees in every state.
Mr. Tobia may have chosen not to seek redress, but his case must not be buried under sentiment and relief. It must become the catalyst for sweeping changes in our criminal justice system.
Because until the law protects the poor as vigorously as it protects the powerful, we cannot claim to live under a just democracy.
Okechukwu Nwanguma is the executive director of Rule of Law Accountability Advocacy Center (RULAAC)
