Admin l Tuesday, February 20, 2018
LAGOS, Nigeria – Deputy Comptroller of Prison at the Kirikiri Medium Prison, Mr Oluwaniyi Emmanuel has attributed overcrowding in prisons in Lagos State to exorbitant fines imposed on suspects by the Lagos State Mobile Courts.
He then called on the Lagos State government to reverse so as to aviod overcrowding of the prisons. He made the remarks when Chief Judge of the state, Justice Opeyemi Oke visited the prison to grant amnesty to some inmates.
Mr Emmanuel, who said that most of the minor inmates in the facility were referred by the Mobile Court, solicited the support of the state government to provide them with buses to aid transportation of inmates to court.
Justice Oke, who turned down most of the inmates that were shorlisted for amnesty based on the gravity of their offences and pointed out that the the exercise would not be abused. However, Justice Oke called for accelerated hearing of cases in court to help the situation.
However, only one out of 17 inmates was released having been infected with tuberculosis.
