26 additional prison inmates regain freedom in Lagos

 
Paul Dada |

26 more prison inmates in Lagos have on Thursday regained freedom. The freed inmates were those on the awaiting trial list at Ikoyi prison.  This was due to the gesture of the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Olufunmilayo Atilade.

The Lagos CJ had on Wednesday during a visit to the Kirikiri Medium Security Prison released 21 of Awaiting Trial Inmates. These were some of the men who had spent more than two months in prison without being tried.

During CJ’s visit to the Ikoyi Prison on Thursday, it was discovered that 10 of the 26  inmates scheduled to be delivered from jail by her, had already been released. Hence, 16 were actually freed by the Chief Judge.

Justice Atilade said it was necessary to release those on the Awaiting Trial list who had been in prison for “an unreasonable period of time.”

The judge who told the freed men to “go and sin no more”, also promised the prison authorities that she would visit again to free more inmates before the end of the year.

The Officer-In-Charge of the Ikoyi Prison, Bamidele Emmanuel Olanrewaju, who is a Deputy Controller of Prisons(DCP), had  informed the CJ about the state of congestion at the correctional institution.

He said there were1811 inmates, “out of whom the Awaiting Trial inmates were 1631, which is about 90% of the population. The convicted figure is just 180 which is about 10% in a prison with a capacity of 800.”

He however said that the Prison management had put in place reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration activities for the inmates. He said they were being trained in different vocational fields such as barbing, tailoring, carpentry, welding, electrical, among others.

“Besides the vocational efforts, we have educational activities that are spiritedly pursued. Of recent, not less than 116 inmates participated in the November/December GCE at the centre inside the yard and not less than 70 passed creditably.

“At our UTME Centre, 27 inmates wrote Electronic based exams and majority of them scored between 170-240. Also, some of our inmates are in-between 100 and 400 levels under the Open University system,” he said.

Olanrewaju then admonished that all segments of the society should be collectively involved in the reintegration of the freed prison inmates.