Minister of Interior Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, and stakeholders facilitated the release of 4,068 inmates who are imprisoned in custodial centers for their inability to pay off fines handed to them as punitive measures by the courts, across the country.
The Minister while flagging off the payment on Saturday at Kuje Maximum Security Correctional Center Abuja, said the effort is in a bid to decongest the country custodian facilities as well as make the inmates humane for proper reformation and rehabilitation of offenders to take place.
He said: “As of yesterday, 17th day of November,2023, there were about 80,804 inmates nation wide, installed capacity of less than 50,000, which shows that our custodian facilities are over crawdad, necessitating this initiative we are flagging up today, which is targeted towards addressing over crowding bedeviling our custodian centers and reformatory function.”
Dr. Tunji-Ojo confirmed that the flagging off the release of the inmates of about 4068 who are serving different imprisonment term in lieu of fines and compensation, he added most of beneficiaries are indigent who cannot afford to pay their fines are languishing in custody.
The Minister averred that total sum of five hundred and eighty five million naira (#585,000 ,000:00)only was raised by corporate bodies as part of their social corporates responsibility to the nation. He maintained; hence all inmates who are fined not exceeding one million naira are qualify and assured they would benefit from his benevolence.
In addition the released inmates would be provided with stipend to enable them return to their communities along with a training for a requisite skills at impacting their lives, functionally and equipping them with knowledge for their self reliance, he said.
Dr. Tunji-Ojo passionately added that the training covers their civil duties and responsibilities as citizens and also as strategy refraining them from offending the law.
The Minister therefore on the communities to please receive the returning citizens with open arms, devoid of stigmatizing against them, he warned; that could drive them back to crimes which he said would further endanger the society.
He admonished the benefiting inmates to see the opportunity as a second chance, to make things right again. He employed them to join hands with the Father of the Nation, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR to make Nigeria great.
Honorable Minister assured that the day’s event is just part of the entire correctional reformation process which would cascades to structural facilities and up scaling the welfare of personnel and inmates.
However, thirty seven inmates were released from Kuje Maximum Security Correctional Centre, Abuja.
The events was witnessed by the Acting Permanent Secretary, Dr. Peter Egbodo, CG Correctional Haliru Nababa, CG Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Dr. Abubakar Audi, CG Federal Fire Service Engineer Abdulganiyu Jaji and stakeholders in correctional services.
Ibraheem Zakariyya,
Chief Information Officer,
For: DD (Press & Public Relations).
