ILORIN – A Non-Governmental Organization, 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 organization 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 offenses.
