Release 70% of Detainees to Reduce Massive number in Correctional Service Centre, Group Urges FG
Abdulrazaq Hamzat, the Executive Director of Foundation for Peace Professionals, better known as PeacePro, a non-governmental organisation advocating campaigning for the release of unsentenced convicts in Nigeria, has urged the Federal Government to consider releasing 70% of Nigerian jail inmates.
While applauding the Federal Government’s decision to release 30% of Nigerian convicts in order to reduce the massive number of detainees in the country’s Correctional Service Centre, Hamzat stated that around 70% of the population are awaiting trial inmates.
Rauf Aregbesola, Minister of Interior, stated that he will work with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to release 30% of prison inmates in order to alleviate prison overcrowding, noting that 70% of the 75,635 detainees in the prison are awaiting trial.
Aregbesola stated that the interface was required because more than 90% of the detainees were being jailed for violating state laws.
The Minister also stated that more than 70% of the 75,635 convicts already incarcerated were awaiting trial.
Rauf Aregbesola, Minister of Interior, stated that he will work with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to release 30% of prison inmates in order to alleviate prison overcrowding, noting that 70% of the 75,635 detainees in the prison are awaiting trial.
The Minister said: “I have written to the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to get permission to speak to them about how they can help the decongestion process, because the governors must buy into this system for us to conduct a big decongestion, particularly with Awaiting Trial Inmates.”
“With the buy-in of state judicial authorities and state administrations, we can pull out 30% of those who are there.”
You can read more of such stories at Credible News
- Federal Government Declares Monday 10 October Public Holiday
- Untold Story of the Released 101 Boko Haram Suspects In Prison
Hamzat,, on the other hand, encouraged the Federal Ministry of Interior to raise the percentage of consideration from 30% to 70% in order to assure a total overall of the correctional institutions, given that more than 70% of detainees in the country are non-convicted criminals.
Abdulrazaq Hamzat, Executive Director of PeacePro, maintained in a statement released on Monday and made available to PUNCH correspondent in Ilorin that releasing suspects who have been held in detention without trial for a long period was far more honourable than keeping people perpetually in prison for petty offences, insisting that such perpetual incarceration of unsentenced prisoners was considered “destructive incarceration” rather than “correctional incarceration.”
Hamzat previously highlighted that PeacePro’s advice to the Federal Government in the Nigeria Peace Index study, a national replica of the renowned Global Peace Index, is to eliminate “destructive incarceration” in Nigeria.
According to Hamzat, data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that more than 72% of people in prison cells or correctional facilities across Nigeria are unsentenced prisoners, some of whom have spent more than ten years in prison for a crime for which they would likely spend fewer years in prison if convicted.
Because the Federal Government agrees that more than 72% of inmates are awaiting trial for longer than required, Hamzat believes it is only fair to raise the percentage of prisoners eligible for release from 30% to 70%.
This, according to Hamzat, would allow the country to completely decongest its prisons while also relieving it of the responsibility of detaining citizens without due process.
He also asked state governors to join the federal government in its efforts to right wrongs in the penitentiary system.
You can read more of such stories at Credible News and The Cheer News
.
