NGO Begs Federal Govt To Free 70% Inmates On Awaiting Trial

A non-governmental organisation, Foundation for Peace Professionals, which champions advocacy for release of unsentenced prisoners in Nigeria, yesterday urged the federal government to consider the release of 70 percent of prison inmates instead of the 30 percent being proposed.

The organisation which hailed the move by the federal government to free 30 percent of Nigerian prisoners to ease the huge population of inmates in the country ‘s Correctional Service Centre  said that about 70 percent of the population are awaiting trial.

It advised the Federal Ministry of Interior to increase the percentage of consideration from 30 percent to 70 percent in order to ensure a total overall of the correctional facilities, owing to the fact that more than 70 percent of inmates in the country are non-convicted prisoners.

In a statement that was issued in Ilorin, the executive director of Peacepro, AbdulRazaq Hamzat, maintained that setting the suspects who have been held in detention without trial for a long period free, is more honourable than keeping people perpetually in prison over petty offences.

He said such perpetual incarceration of unsentenced prisoners is considered “destructive incarceration” rather than “correctional incarceration”.

Hamzat had previously explained that the advocacy to end “destructive incarceration” in Nigeria is part of Peacepro’s recommendation to the federal government in the Nigeria Peace Index (NPI) report, a national replica of the renown Global Peace Index.

He said that data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had shown that over 72 percent of people in prison cells or correctional facilities across Nigeria are unsentenced prisoners, some of whom had spent over 10 years in prison, for a crime that if convicted, they would probably spend less years in jail.

Hamzat noted that, since the federal government also agree that more than 72 percent of prisoners are awaiting trial for periods longer than necessary, it is only proper to increase the percentage of prisoners in consideration for freedom from 30 percent to 70 percent.

This, Hamzat said, would help the country totally decongest the prisons, while freeing itself from the burden of holding citizens in detention without due course of justice.