The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), on Sunday expressed shock over the number of mad person cohabiting with sane inmate in the Abakaliki Federal prisons and demanded urgent attention to avoid uncertainty.
The commission said that more than 15 of the inmates awaiting trials in the prisons are already mad and require urgent medical attention.
It also said many children and their mothers have been languishing in the prisons for years for common offence which ordinarily shouldn’t have warranted their being taken to the prisons.
The Executive Secretary of the commission, Professor Bem Angwe made the revelations at the Government House, Abakaliki during a
courtesy call on Governor David Umahi.
Mr. Angwe said the commission was in Abakaliki to probe the attempted jailbreak of August 18 this year in which many inmates reportedly lost their lives.
‘’Some two weeks back when I led a team of the commission on the spot assessment of the situation there in the Abakaliki prisons and found very pathetic situation. Situation where the inmates awaiting trial are more than 80% and that has been the situation for years.
‘’Sadly, if you enter any of the prison cells, you find that the inmates have nowhere to sit, lay or squat. In the nights, they take
turn to sleep; some of them sleep for two hours and they are woken-up for other inmates to sleep.
‘’So many cases there are very sympathetic. We saw a woman with two children in the prisons. She was accused of stealing coco yam of N400.
“They refused to grant her bail. They made difficult bail condition for her that require two sureties who are on level 16 in civil service. You can imagine somebody who was accused of stealing N400 worth of cocoyam, what access will she has to a grade level 16 officials of
government?”.
‘’There are some other women there with children who have this kind of pathetic conditions. There is an old man who has been there for eleven years without trail and if the person is discharged, what amount of compensation will be adequate for someone who has been there for eleven years without trial?
‘’There are more than 15 persons there who are mentally sick. These are our brothers who require medical attention and they are allowed there. Some urgent must be done to save their conditions ’’, he said.
Angwe lamented that many people have died in the prisons while awaiting trails.
‘’There is a case over killing of a Monarch. While some highly placed personalities in the state was granted bail, the rest of the suspects have been kept in that prisons and they have been dying one after the other. Your Excellency, you have to set-up a committee to look into
this case because the suspects have been dying and their families requires compensation’’.
He urged Umahi to provide medical attention to the inmates who were shot during the attempted jailbreak.
Responding, Governor Umahi who expressed dismay over the poor facilities at the Abakaliki federal prisons, regretted that prisons higher authority have not paid attention to his letters on the need to rehabilitate the facilities.
He said if after seven days the authority refused to do something, the state government will be forced to embark on construction of befitting prisons for the inmates and directed the Commissioner for Lands and Survey to immediately commenced the process of constructing the prisons.
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