By Dwelleth Morountodun
The Federal Government on Thursday, took a bold step to decongest it’s 250 correctional facilities with 74, 000 inmates through extending amnesty to 2600 inmates scattered across the country.
However, Olisa Metuh, Orji Uzor Kalu, Jolly Nyame and Joshua Dariye, all high profile politicians who were convicted for fraud were however not included in the pardon by government through the Federal Ministry of Interior.
Speaking at the amnesty ceremony in Abuja, the Minister of Interior Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, said the pardon granted by government also includes the inmates in our correctional facilities, serving terms, awaiting trials or in the condemned criminals row, awaiting execution.
He said: “For us at the Ministry of Interior, our mandate is very clear. The orientation must change from the punitive concept of imprisonment to correction and reformation where inmates will be given opportunity to reflect, regret, repent, be transformed, be renewed and energised to begin a new and productive life as an honourable and law-abiding member of society.
“This will require that the inmates, though denied freedom of movement while in custody, be put in a decent environment and treated humanely as possible in a way befitting their status as citizens with all dignity.
“They need to be well fed, decently housed and given proper medical attention.”
According to the Minister, the correctional institutions have done a yeoman’s job adding: “I must commend them for the reforms that have been carried out and the positive results we have seen.”
However, he said the country is still faced with accommodation, stressing that the 250 facilities are inadequate to house the over 74,000 inmates in our custody presently.
He said: “You will recollect that last month we turned the sod for the construction of a 3,000-capacity custodial centre in Abuja. Before then, work had started in 2017 on a 3,000-Capacity Maximum Security Custodial Centre sited at Janguza in Kano State and is awaiting completion. We are therefore doing everything possible to overcome the accommodation challenges.
“However, a bigger issue that will positively affect accommodation at the correctional centres is the review of criminal justice administration with regards to the inmates.
“For instance, our last audit shows that a disproportionate number of inmates are awaiting trial persons (ATPs). In addition, we observed that”
According to Aregbesola, some of the ATPs have spent 10 years or more in custody, some have no confirmed criminal case against them, some have had their cases determined but could not pay the fines imposed on them by the courts, some are already old and weak; while some are very sick and infirm.
“Following these observations, the Ministry had set in motion the machinery for the decongestion of our correctional facilities, but this has now become imperative by the outbreak and continued spread of COVID-19.
“The virus, it should be reiterated, has no known cure. The best advice given by experts is to maintain environmental and personal hygiene, particularly constant washing of hands and maintaining social distance.
“The Nigerian Correctional Service has been taking extra care to prevent the introduction and spread of the virus in the custodial centres by improving the level of hygiene, suspension of social visits and extra-screening of new inmates among others.” He said. By
He added that these will not go far unless we drastically reduce the population of inmates.
It is in this circumstance that the ministry convened a meeting of relevant stakeholders, including the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Controller General of the Nigerian Correctional Service and the Director General Nigeria Intelligence Agency to look into this matter and propose measures that could be taken to reduce population at the custodial centres.
The meeting, he said yielded positive results. At the end of the meeting, we agreed to recommend to President Muhammadu Buhari to, among others, approve the report of the Presidential Committee on the prerogative of mercy which was before him, in order to facilitate the decongestion of custodial centres.
He said: “The President graciously approved this request and others. In arriving at amnesty, various issues were looked into and several options were considered. But the most pertinent and accordingly adopted are: Old age.
“This is for inmates that are 60 years old and above, those suffering from ill-health that are likely to terminate in death, convicts serving three years and above and have less than six months to serve, inmates with mental health issues and, inmates with options of fines not exceeding N50,000 and have no pending case.
“Using these criteria, a total number of 2,600 inmates spread across our various custodial centres qualify to benefit from the amnesty.
“These include 885 convicts who could not pay their fines totalling N21.4 million which the government will pay on their behalf to enable them get their freedom.
“From this number, 41 inmates are federal convicts, two of which have been granted pardon.
“We will proceed from here to Kuje custodial centre to release the 41 in a symbolic gesture of the freedom that have been given to 2,600 inmates across the federation. The governors of the 36 states under whose jurisdiction the inmates were incarcerated will complete the exercise in line with our federal principle.” He said.