President Tinubu's administration releases over 4,000 prisoners to reduce overcrowding and improve rehabilitation

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's administration has freed 4,068 prisoners from various correctional facilities in the country as part of its efforts to reduce overcrowding and improve rehabilitation.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, on Saturday at the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Kuje, Abuja, where he launched the payment of fines and compensations for inmates who were incarcerated because they could not afford to pay their penalties for their offences.

He said that this initiative was in line with President Tinubu's Renewed Hope Agenda, which aims to transform the country.

He explained that the correctional facilities in the country had a total capacity of less than 50,000, but they were holding about 80,804 inmates as of Friday, November 17, 2023.

"This shows that our correctional facilities are over-crowded; necessitating this initiative we are flagging off today, which is targeted towards addressing the overcrowding conundrum bedevilling our correctional facilities and their reformatory function.

"Today, we flag off the release of a total of 4,068 inmates who are serving different terms of imprisonment in lieu of fines and/or compensation.

"Most of the benefitting inmates on the verge of their freedom are indigents who cannot afford to pay their fines and are languishing in custody.

"The sum of N585,000,000.00 was raised by philanthropic individuals, groups and corporate bodies, as part of their corporate social responsibility, for this purpose.

"Hence, all inmates in correctional facilities who have fines and/or compensation not exceeding N1,000,000 are qualified and would benefit from this gesture. In addition, we are also providing each of them a stipend to enable them to return to their communities," he said.

The minister said the inmates have been given the requisite training aimed at impacting their lives functionally and equipping them with the knowledge for their self-reliance upon discharge.

He called on the larger community to receive the returning citizens with open arms, urging them to refrain from stigmatizing them as it could drive the released inmates back to crime

In his remarks, the Controller General of Corrections, Haliru Nababa, said the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) Act, 2019 had brought a huge sigh of relief to the Service as it contains several provisions that are geared towards decongesting the correctional facilities in line with global best practice.

"Sections 37 (1) and 12(4-12) of the NCoS Act, 2019 which authorizes non-custodial measures and rejection of inmates where a facility has exceeded its capacity respectively, are key among the available windows for ameliorating congestion.

"While we pursue full implementation of the Act, we have continued to adopt other short-term strategies like engaging the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria (LACON) for Pro-bono legal services for inmates as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), for payment of fines," he said.