The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has reported that as at the end of the second quarter of 2025, there are 81,710 inmates in the nation’s correctional facilities, representing 16.82% increase over the 69,946 in the facilities in 2017.
The statistics agency, in its ‘Nigerian Correctional Service Statistics for 2017 to Q2 2025’ report released on Wednesday, which featured the prison inmate population, correctional centres capacity, un-sentenced inmates, and admissions, disclosed that as of the quarter under review, Lagos State had the highest inmate population of 9,209 inmates, and 4,167 Correctional Centres capacity, with an overcrowding ratio of 221%.
According to the report, other states with high inmate populations are Ogun at 4,939, Kano at 4,667, and Enugu at 3,536 compared with Kogi, which had the lowest inmate population at 530, followed by Bayelsa at 696, and Benue at 777.
The Bureau revealed that the number of un-sentenced inmates rose from 47,610 in 2017 to 53,790 in Q2 of 2025, representing a 12.98% increase while during the nine-year period, the Correctional Centres’ capacity increased from 53,752 to 65,035, representing a 20.99% increase.
The NBS further clarified that at the end of 2024, Nigeria’s correctional facilities had a total of 176,536 inmate admissions across various offences.
It reported among the inmates, those in remand/awaiting trial cases remained the highest at 94,614 while the condemned cases had the lowest rate of 2,883 inmates.
In terms of type of offences, the statistics agency’s data showed that stealing recorded the highest number of admissions at 55,722; followed by other offences at 46,043, armed robbery totalled 10,090 smuggling 118, while bribery and corruption recorded the least with 27, followed by cybercrimes at 48.