The government of President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the Nigerian Governors Forum to request a meeting to decongest jails across the country.
According to his Media Adviser, Sola Fasure, the letter was written by Rauf Aregbesola, Minister of Interior.
Aregbesola announced that he would meet with state governors in exactly one month to agree on the mass release of at least 30% of inmates from penitentiary facilities across the country.
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The minister stated that the interface was required because more than 90% of the inmates were being imprisoned for violating various state laws, stressing that more than 70% of the 75,635 inmates were now awaiting trial.
He said that the number of federal offenders in the system was significantly less than 10%, and that the vast majority of individuals in detention had broken state laws.
According to Aregbesola, they were thus kept under the legal authority of their respective states.
The minister went on to say that decongesting the nation’s 253 detention facilities was required because some of the detainees had no justification to be in custody.
However, when asked about the minister’s actions, Fasure stated, “The minister has written to the Governors Forum, but he has not met with them since they will have to communicate with him and provide him a date.”
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“He wrote to them with the request that he wants to meet with them, but he is yet to get a response. In other words, the meeting has not been held.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Government reported on Tuesday that over 12,000 inmates were freed from various correctional facilities across the country in the last six years as part of the jail decongestion policy.
Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, addressed this to members of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, and Legal Matters during the committee’s 2023 budget defense session.
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