The Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami has disclosed that over N16m was paid by Kano state government for the release of 368 inmates, including two women from the 10 prisons across the state.
The Attorney General made this known during a brief ceremony at the Kano Central Prison when National Stakeholders Committee on Prisons Reform and Decongestion visited Kano. According to him, the gesture done by the state government is in collaboration with stakeholders committee’s effort in decongesting prisons across the nation adding that the committee had also successfully secured freedom for 126 inmates of Kuje, Old Keffi, New Keffi and Suleja Prisons, where a substantial sum was paid as fines.
He stressed that the benefitting inmates would be released in batches and that the inmates released were those who had been in prisons for more than five years without trial and those remanded due to their inability to pay their fines.
Similarly, Kano state governor Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje told the committee that, it is very important to address the issue of prisoners in the nation adding that the easiest way of doing so is to to allow prison formations to be transferred to state governments.
In his remark Kano state Controller of Prison Magaji Ahmad Abdullahi urged other states to emulate the Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, by cooperating with the committee to decongest prisons in their states.
