ABUJA — Nigeria's custodial centres now hold 80,812 inmates, and most of them have not been convicted of any crime, according to figures from the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS). Of the total, 51,955 inmates, or 64 per cent, are awaiting trial, while 24,913 are convicted and 3,850 fall into other categories. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the number of unsentenced inmates rose from 47,610 in 2017 to 53,790 in the second quarter of 2025. In May 2026, the ECOWAS Court ruled that prolonged pre-trial detention and overcrowding violated inmates' rights, a concern also raised by the National Human Rights Commission. A federal investigative panel that assessed 86 facilities in 23 states and the FCT found serious decay in Delta, Edo, Sokoto and Kaduna, and recommended that the daily feeding allowance per inmate be raised from N750 to N3,000. In 2025, feeding took N27.28 billion, or 71.7 per cent of overhead releases, and N10.75 billion in food-ration bills remains unpaid. For 2026, N14.83 billion has been proposed to feed about 91,100 inmates at N1,125 per inmate per day. Security inside the facilities is another concern. In May, the service destroyed 1,167 seized phones, recovered N2.569 million in smuggled cash and sanctioned 147 officers. In August, an inmate at the Ibara Medium Custodial Centre, Abeokuta, broadcast live on TikTok, leading to the removal of three senior officers. Funding gaps persist: only N3.22 billion of the N14.50 billion capital allocation for 2025 was released. Non-custodial sentencing, seen as a way to reduce congestion, remains limited, with only 1,271 people serving such sentences as of July. The NCoS has proposed N37.99 billion to expand the programme to all 774 local government areas, as part of a total 2026 budget request of N198.85 billion.