FG spends N22bn on prisoner meals

The Federal Government is to spend over N22 billion to feed inmates across the country.

The Controller General, Nigeria Correctional Service, Haliru Nababa stated this at a high-level conference on decongestion and corrections administration organized by the Ministry of Interior in Abuja.

Haliru Nababa said currently the service has over seventy-five thousand inmates in its 244 custodial centers nationwide with over eighty percent of them as awaiting trial inmates.

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The CG solicited on the conference to discuss ways to decongest the custodial centers.

The Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola in a goodwill message, said the nation must take proactive steps to ensure that the police apply technology and professionalism in carrying out investigation to mark words to action.

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The Minister of Interior and convener of the conference, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola explained that stakeholders must garner the political will to ensure that people who have no business being in custodial centers do not get there by using alternative punishment rather than imprisonment.

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The Conference had in attendance Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami, Minister of Women Social Development Dame Patience Tallin, State Attorney Generals, State Chief Justices and Civil Society Organizations and members of the Diplomatic Corps.