Femi Peters, Abeokuta
The Ogun State Chief Judge, Justice Mosunmola Dipeolu on Wednesday granted Twenty-six prison inmates amnesty.
The amnesty came while they were awaiting trials by the prerogative power of the state’s Chief Judge during a three day tour to the five prison formations across the three Senatorial Districts of the state.
Justice Dipeolu said that the second quarter’s prisons jail delivery was aimed at decongesting prison formations of inmates after reviewing their cases while inmates with no case files, medical factors amongst other reasons were discharged to go and sin no more.
“The inmates were released with a view to decongest the prisons and the exercise is in accordance with the service of the law under the custody act. I want to appeal to the released inmates to be of good behaviour, so that they do not return to the prison,” Dipeolu said.
She advised that government should build more prison formations across the state, in order to decongest some prisons, noting that all efforts being made to decongest the prisons across the state were proved abortive.
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“As you can notice here that more people are coming in on daily basis, crime rate is really very high in our society and we all know that, that is why am recommending that more prison formations should be built to accommodate criminals, we can only release those that suppose not to be here”, Dipeolu said.
She added that some prisons have doubled its capacity which was not good for the inmates’ health, society and environment at large, saying that the courts are trying its best to decongest these prisons through the prisons courts, intervention week and jail delivery exercise, yet most these prisons were still congested.
She lamented the level of prisons congestion across the state, stating that New Abeokuta Prison, Oba was only the prison that was not highly congested because of it relatively new and large capacity, compare to Ibara which has capacity of 510 inmates, but now have about 1,164 inmates.
She called on government at all levels to find a lasting solution in decongesting the prisons across the state, as it was unwholesome for leaving prisons congested, so as to also avoid unnecessary jail break by the inmates.
