The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) has said congestion of prisons in Nigeria negatively affects the quality of the country’s justice delivery system.
He said the state of the most of the prisons in the country also impacts adversely on the human rights of all inmates, hence the need to prioritize prison decongestion exercise across the country.
Speaking during the visit of the Stakeholders Committee on Reforms and Decongestion of Prisons to Kuje prisons, Malami said the approval of a modern state of the art Case Management System for the prisons across the nation is a major step towards prisons decongestion.
“This will strengthen the operations of the Federal Justice Sector Institutions and eliminate bottlenecks in the administration of justice in Nigeria. The pilot phase of the project is expected to take off in the first quarter of 2018.
“Additionally, the President of the Federal Republic has communicated to the various Chief Executives of the states of the federation on the need to review cases with a view to decongesting the prisons,” he said.
Malami added that the Federal Ministry of Justice will host a Stakeholders Summit in the second quarter of 20018 involving chief judges, all attorney-generals, the Nigerian Bar Association, Legal Aid Council, National Human Rights Commission, Civil Societies and all other relevant bodies.
He said the summit will aim to “fashion out a permanent solution to the intractable problem of congestion in our prisons.”
