The Chairman of the Northern Caucus of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, has pledged N10 million to the Nigeria Correctional Services to offset the fines of at least 100 inmates with the goal of securing their release.
The lawmaker representing Doguwa/Tudunwada federal constituency at the Green Chamber made the announcement on Wednesday when he visited Goron Dutse Correctional Facility, the same facility where he was briefly incarcerated when he was arrested over a case of alleged arson and murder after the 2023 general elections.
Doguwa, accompanied by the publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano, Ahmad Aruwa, alongside other chieftains of the party, also donated several foodstuffs, including 10 bags of rice and two cows, as well as other items to the facility as part of his New Year activities.
His visit to the correctional facility, it was gathered, came after he made a similar gesture at Tudunwada Satellite Prison and an orphanage, all in his federal constituency.
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Speaking during the visit, Doguwa said the prisoners to benefit from this gesture are those standing minor cases upon which judgements have been passed but remained incarcerated because they could not afford to offset the option of fines attached to their sentences.
He recalled how he also spent six days in the facility in what he said the court has now established to be a trumped up charge that ought not to have been brought against him, but believed God had a plan for him to allow him to see the plight of the inmates.
He apologized to those in charge of the correctional facility “for not checking back on time since I left here because I have been passing through a series of tests, which I do not want to attribute to any human being, it’s from God.
“I am proud to say that I am one of the people who were tested by God to enter a place that even some of his prophets once entered. And from that day I entered and exited this place, there is no day I don’t remember the critical life, trauma and affliction people living here are undergoing as I once passed through it.
“If I had not entered, probably I may not remember that there are people here who need leaders’ intervention,” he said.
He urged all the inmates “especially those who are here unjustly, to be firm believers, that the way I came here and God offered me a solution, they too will have it someday.”
Responding on behalf of the correctional facility, its Chief Administrative Officer, DC Abdullahi Ibrahim, thanked the lawmaker for the kind gesture.
He appealed to the lawmaker and other goodhearted humans to further come to the aid of the facility, especially with equipment that can aid the inmates’ rehabilitation like sewing machines, computers and others.
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