Kirikiri, Lagos: the prison town beside Ajegunle

Say “Kirikiri” almost anywhere in Nigeria and people think of one thing: the prison. Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison is the best-known jail in the country, and its name has travelled far beyond Lagos. But Kirikiri is also a place, a community on the western side of the Lagos port district, close to Ajegunle, where people live, trade and go to work every day. This guide covers both, as plainly as we can.

Where Kirikiri is

Kirikiri lies west of Apapa, a few kilometres from Ajegunle. Administratively it is a ward of Amuwo-Odofin local government area, whose headquarters is at Festac Town. The prison takes its name from the community it stands in.

Its neighbours explain a lot about it. To the east are the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports, Nigeria’s busiest, and part of Tin Can Island Port’s operation is the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal, with two berths for smaller vessels. Between Kirikiri and Apapa lies Ajeromi-Ifelodun, the council area that contains Ajegunle, and Kirikiri Road is part of AJ’s everyday street life.

What is a lighter terminal?

A lighter is a flat barge used to carry cargo between big ships and the shore, or along shallow creeks where ocean-going vessels cannot go. The Kirikiri Lighter Terminal, with its two berths, is where that smaller traffic loads and unloads. It is a reminder that, prisons aside, Kirikiri’s place on the map is really about the water and the ports.

The three facilities

There is not one prison at Kirikiri but three, all run by the Nigerian Correctional Service:

• Kirikiri Maximum Security, the famous one, established in 1955 with an initial capacity of 1,056 inmates.
• Kirikiri Medium Security, a separate facility nearby.
• Kirikiri Women’s, described as the only all-women facility of its kind in Nigeria.

The maximum security facility has held people from every part of Nigerian life over the decades, including well-known political figures, and it houses some prisoners under sentence of death. Official figures have shown it holding more people than it was built for: in 1990 it held 1,645 people against a capacity of 956, and prison service data in 2018 showed that 69 per cent of its inmates were awaiting trial rather than serving a sentence.

Past inmates

Because it is the country’s best-known maximum security prison, Kirikiri has held people whose names are in Nigeria’s history books. Lists of its past inmates include the musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the former head of state Olusegun Obasanjo, the former deputy head of state Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and the novelist Chris Abani. Having held people of that standing is part of why the name carries so much weight.

From prisons to corrections

In August 2019 President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Nigerian Correctional Service Act into law. It renamed the Nigerian Prisons Service as the Nigerian Correctional Service and divided its work into a custodial service, which runs facilities like those at Kirikiri, and a non-custodial service for sentences served in the community. The aim, as the new name says, is correction rather than only punishment. Officially the facilities now carry the correctional service’s names, but in everyday speech, and in this article’s title, it is still Kirikiri prison.

Kirikiri in popular culture

The name has travelled abroad, too. In an episode of the American television drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a character is sent to Kirikiri after being returned to Nigeria.

A link with the UK

Kirikiri has a particular place in the story of the Nigerian diaspora. In 2018 the British government announced it would fund a new 112-bed wing at the prison, so that Nigerian nationals serving sentences in the UK could be transferred home to finish them.

The community beyond the walls

It is easy to forget that most people in Kirikiri have nothing to do with the prisons. Like any Lagos district it has homes, roads, churches, mosques and businesses, and it sits in the busy belt between the ports and the western suburbs. The officers who work in the facilities, and their families, are part of the wider community as well. If you only know Kirikiri as a word in a headline, it is worth remembering that it is first of all somebody’s neighbourhood.

Visiting or contacting someone inside

If you have a relative or friend held at Kirikiri, contact the Nigerian Correctional Service directly for the current visiting rules, days and what you may bring. Do not photograph the walls, gates or staff. If you are simply passing, remember that the community around the facilities is people’s home, not a sight to look at, and that the families queuing at a prison gate are having a hard enough day already.

Kirikiri in AJ Cities

AJ Cities, our free browser game, is set in an invented estate on the edge of Ajegunle, where Navy Town meets Kirikiri. Across the road to the east is a prison wall, its watchtower lights part of the night sky. The club on the estate’s main street, Prizm, is owned by an invented character called the Warden, Chief Lazarus Ekanem, who in the story spent thirty-one years as a warder at Kirikiri and named his club for the difference between a prism and a prison. He and every other character in the game are fiction, and the game does not show the real facilities or anyone who works in them.

Where is Kirikiri prison?

The Kirikiri facilities are in Kirikiri, a community west of Apapa in Lagos, in Amuwo-Odofin local government area, a few kilometres from Ajegunle.

When was Kirikiri prison built?

Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison was established in 1955, with an initial capacity of 1,056 inmates.

How many prisons are at Kirikiri?

Three: the Maximum Security and Medium Security facilities and the Women’s facility, all run by the Nigerian Correctional Service.

Is it still called a prison?

In 2019 the Nigerian Prisons Service was renamed the Nigerian Correctional Service, but most people still call it Kirikiri prison.