Remembering the inmates of Kaduna prison

The Controller General of Prisons, Nigerian Prison Service (NPS), Kaduna state command, Abubakar Talba could not hide his joy when he said the donation by NEMA is the first donation from a Federal Government establishment  in  50 years.
He said the Kaduna Convict Prison is 100 years old, and in the last 50 years the prison has suffered a lot of neglect, as government alone cannot handle the running of the prison, pointing to the fact that inmates are on the increase.
According to him, Prison congestion will soon become a thing of the past in all prison formations in Kaduna state, as the state government has promised not to rest on its oars, until the prison is decongested, with a view to addressing one of the enormous challenges facing prison formations across the state.
He also disclosed that following the recent decongestion exercise carried out by the state government, awaiting trial inmates with capital offences that have been in the prisons for close to 10 years, recently regained their freedom.
“With the rate at which the state government is committed to prison decongestion in the state, I am very optimistic that prison congestion will soon become a thing of the past.
“The awaiting trial prisoners in the various formations in the state outnumber the convicted inmates. It is the problem of the criminal case of administration. The police arrest, they do their investigation and they take these people to court.The problem we are having is the issue of transfer of prosecutors that are supposed to handle these cases. They usually have a lot of challenges of getting key witnesses to appear before the court. At times because of the stigma involved, people do not want to appear in court.
“In this wise, I have to commend the Chief Justice of Kaduna state. We have cases of awaiting trial inmates with capital offences that have been in the prisons for close to 10 years. Just two weeks ago, these people were released from the prisons.
“The challenges in the prison formations  in Kaduna are enormous. But with the support we have been getting from the National headquarters of the prisons,  and the decongestion exercise that was carried out by the Kaduna state government whereby 594 were released in 14 prisons across the states between January-December 2014, some of these challenges have been drastically  reduced.
“Throughout the world, prisons are not run by government alone. Multinational companies, corporate organisations, wealthy individuals and religious bodies are always involved in the day to day  exercise of providing some basic needs of inmates. As you can see, we have 14 prisons in Kaduna state and most of these  prisons have skills acquisition centres. We still have the materials, but with the number of prisoners that are being brought on a daily basis,and  with the increase of  the crime waves and the issue of insecurity  in the country, we have challenges ahead of us ,and that is why we made this request to NEMA.
“The capacity of the prison is 530 and we have close to 1,000 inmates now. The Kaduna prison is 100 years. From our archives we can see that in the last 50 years, no agency of government or any multinational company donated the items that NEMA has just donated,” he said.
He commended the governor of Kaduna State, Attorney General, the Chief Judge and the Commissioner of Police, saying they are helping  in ensuring that prisons are decongested in Kaduna state.

On his part, NEMA Zonal Coordinator, North-West zone Musa Illah said following a visit by the NPS who where on an on- the- spot assessment, the NEMA Director General approved the release of relief materials for the use of prisoners.
“The agency is not only mandated to take care of only people that are in distress. We are also to look into our sister organisations in the Federal, state and local government councils. We look into areas  which we think need our support, to make life better for every Nigerian, whether in or out of distress,” he said.
Asked what the agency has been doing in case of fire and other related disasters, he said “we have been on our toes and we have assisted greatly in catering for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) in Kaduna and other places, because of the insurgency in the north east, and we will continue to do so. We have responded to fire incidents, incidents of flood and even accidents on the road.”
The items donated include  blankets,  mats, mattresses, cartoons of soap, Omo, pieces of plastic plates, plastic spoons, and many other items.