In 1999, after a 39-year long post-independence history of mostly military regimes, Nigeria underwent a transition to a democratic form of governance with the president suggesting the need for prison reform. Prisons and prison staff in newly democratized, developing countries have become targets for interventions, often in the form of human rights training. With reference to human rights training interventions targeting Nigerian prison staff, this article addresses the fundamental weaknesses of such interventions, addresses the North-South dynamics implicit in them and offers some reflections on the scope for criticism available to the practice-based researcher. The article draws on 8 months of fieldwork carried out amongst prison officers in Nigeria during 2002. The intent was to illuminate the complexity of practice and understandings of practice across the institutions in which prison officers participate, with a particular focus on learning, change, and staff training. It is argued as wrong to target Nigerian institutions in terms of their deviance from a set of international human rights norms, and in doing so, may be missing the mark. References