Lagos – Inmates at the Federal Prison, Owerri, Imo State, are suffocating, as the facility built to accommodate 548 inmates now house over 2,000 suspects, most of them awaiting trial.
INDEPENDENT checks reveal the many factors responsible for the overpopulation of the penitentiary. They include lackadaisical attitude on the part of the judges, industrial action by judicial workers and the authorities’ reluctance to depopulate the prison through granting of amnesty to detainees.
States in Nigeria traditionally grant amnesty to awaiting trial detainees to decongest prisons. But in Imo, this comes in miserly supply.
In November 2017, INDEPENDENT learnt that Justice Paschal Nnadi was booed during his visit to the prison, with some inmates pelting him with sachet water and pebbles.
Nnadi, who was appointed Chief Judge of Imo in December 2014, during that visit, reportedly freed just one inmate who was said to have mental problems.
The inmates’ grouse, our reporter learnt, was his reluctance to free up space by releasing some of them who had “unnecessarily overstayed”.
Some of the inmates have been detained for over 10 years without hope of gaining freedom, according to INDEPENDENT checks.
One of the inmates told our undercover reporter that he had been in the facility since 2008. He lamented that he was arrested by a police officer, who is now deceased, for a case he knew nothing about.
Confirming to INDEPENDENT that his lawyer had been pursuing the case, he said strikes by judicial workers and unnecessary adjournments kept him in the facility.
Probed further what his offence was, he told INDEPENDENT that the police officer (now the late) accused him of being one of those that attempted to kidnap the wife of Frank Nneji, the Managing Director of Associated Bus Company (ABC) Plc about a decade ago.
According to him, one day he was in court but was told that the presiding judge had travelled overseas for a wedding ceremony, leaving cases unattended to.
On the part of government, the CJ seems to care less about the state of the prison and the inmates; otherwise he would have ordered the release of some aged inmates and those who have overstayed in detention awaiting trial, like other executives do all over the country.
In April 2016, The Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Oluwafunmilayo Atilade, released 153 awaiting trial inmates from the Kirikiri Maximum and Medium prisons. This was because the facility with a holding capacity of 1,053 inmates housed 1,235 inmates.
Three of the freed inmates had been standing trial for over 15 years.
Atilade said the amnesty granted the inmates was in line with her statutory duty to ensure that the prisons were not congested.
Also, in May 2017, Justice Atilade freed 66 awaiting trial inmates from the Kirikiri Medium Prison in exercise of the constitutional powers conferred on her by section 1(1) Criminal Justice Release from Custody (Special Provision) Act Cap C40 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2007 as part of effort of the judiciary and other stakeholders to decongest the prison.
The post Over 2,000 Inmates Suffocate In 548 Capacity Prison In Owerri appeared first on Independent Nigeria.
Source: Daily Independent
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Title :
Over 2,000 Inmates Suffocate In 548 Capacity Prison In Owerri
Description : Lagos – Inmates at the Federal Prison, Owerri, Imo State, are suffocating, as the facility built to accommodate 548 inmates now house ove...
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