The Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Oluwafunmilayo Atilade on Thursday continued her prison amnesty exercise with the release of 31 inmates from the Ikoyi prison.
Speaking during her visit to the prison today, the Chief Judge said that her administration is committed to decongesting prisons in the State, and that situations where cases are allowed to prolong unnecessarily in courts will no longer be tolerated.
While admonishing the freed prisoners not to return to crime again, Atilade stated that her administration will continue to review cases of inmates who have no business being in prison.
According to her, “Those of you that have been released today should see this as an opportunity for a new beginning. You must henceforth be of good behaviour and never return to crime”.
“The purpose of carrying out this exercise is to achieve a reduction in the awaiting trial population in prisons, situations where cases are allowed to unnecessarily drag on in court will no longer be tolerated,” she said.
The Chief Judge noted that one of the reasons why many deserving inmates do not benefit from amnesty programme is that the State Directorate of Public Prosecution does not always provide the Prison Decongestion Committee detailed information about the awaiting trial inmates.
She therefore urged the Directorate to develop mechanism where case files of inmates can easily be accessed and reviewed by the committee.
Justice Atilade also advised that the prison authorities must also be up and doing by providing adequate and relevant information to the prison decongestion committee.
Earlier in his remark, the Deputy Comptroller in charge of Ikoyi Prison, Julius Ezeugwu thanked the Chief Judge for releasing the inmates, saying that inspite of the large number of awaiting trial inmates in Ikoyi prison, the officials have continued to make the place reformatory.
“It is pertinent at this juncture to state that ikoyi prison statistics stands at 2295 out of which Awaiting Trial Inmates constitutes 2009 inmates. This represents about 90 per cent of total inmates, while the convicted inmates are just 286 in a prison with a lock up capacity of 800 inmates”, he said.
Ezeugwu noted that Ikoyi is run as a full correctional institute for reformation and rehabilitation of offenders in contrast to the erroneous impression or notion of Nigerian Prisons as mere warehouse for criminal elements or a dungeon.
It will be recalled that Justice Atilade had on Wednesday released 153 prisoners at both the kirikiri medium and maximum prisons, making a total of 184 prisoners released by the Chief Judge in two days.
