There was a mild laughter in the Senate on Tuesday when Senator Gabriel Suswan (Benue North East) said that for anyone to be proper leaders in Nigeria, he/she “must spend one or two days in prison”.
Suswan stated this while contributing to a motion on “the Need to Upgrade, Decongest and Disinfect Correctional Centres Nationwide” sponsored by Senator Uche Lilian Ekwunife (Anambra Central).
It would be recalled that Suswan was remanded in Kuje Correctional Centre for two days in June 2017 for alleged diversion of N9.7billion SURE-P fund.
“I want to support this motion based on my experience (in Kuje correctional centre) and when I left, I recommended that for people to be proper leaders in this country, at least each and everyone of us must spend one or two days in prison,” he said.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, interjected amidst laughter from the lawmakers, saying “anyone who served as a governor, yes and deputy governor probably.”
Suswam then continued, “Like what the former Minister, Abba Moro said earlier, I went there, they took me there in the night. The following day in the morning, the entire prison knew I was there. I sat down there from morning to evening because there were a lot of young people there.
“There was a young man who has spent 10 years there for just a problem of N10,000. Various individuals were there on very minor offences that the Police can afford to correct them and send them home.
“I made it a point of duty when I left that place. For the next one month, I took close to 20 young people out of that place. It didn’t take anything, just pay the money, sent them back to court. I selected three lawyers who I sent to Kuje prison.
“Most of the people that are there don’t need to be there and they unduly congest the place.”
Senator Ibrahim Gobir, (Sokoto East) also disagreed with Suswan, describing Nigerian prison as college for criminals.
“It is college for criminals. People become hardened criminals. Prisons are owned by government and the correctional centres are owned by individuals.
“If we can improve them to be well-secured and well-rehabilated, it would be a good development,” Gobir stated.
Senator Rochas Okorocha (Imo West), in his contribution, said Nigerian prisons demonstrated the worst kind of inhumane treatment which should be addressed.
Senator Lillian Ekwunife, who sponsored the motion, said out of the over 74,000 inmates in Nigeria, only about 24,000 were convicted while 50,000 others were awaiting trials.
She said the facilities designed to accommodate 800 inmates houses over 4,000 forcing them to stand sleeping or taking turn to do so.
The situation, she maintained, called for reform.
Meanwhile, the Senate, in its resolutions, urged the federal government to encourage private participation in the development of correctional centres across the country.
The Red Chamber also urged the Ministry of Interior to commence the process of upgrading facilities in Nigerian Correctional Services to duly transform them to proper correctional centres.
It also urged the Correctional Services to adequately profile inmates and separate them accordingly to avoid lumping of light/first offenders with hardened criminals and undertake a national clean up and fumigation of all correctional facilities in the country to avoid outbreak of epidemic.
The Senate also urged the Judiciary, Ministry of Interior and the Nigerian Correctional Services to work together and come up with a workable modality on how to fastrack the process of decongesting the correctional centres in the country.
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