38,000 awaiting trial inmates have no records – Moro

No fewer than 38,000 inmates are awaiting trial across the country.
According to the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, who disclosed this after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja, it was because there was no access to the nature of their crimes.
Moro, who spoke with newsmen, however, said his ministry has forwarded a draft bill to the National Assembly seeking to properly categorize crimes and punishments.
His words: “We have a sizeable number of awaiting trial inmates.
“There’s no doubt about it.
“And like I said, the proportion as at the last count was about 70 per cent to 30 per cent.
“It’s an awesome number.
“It’s unacceptable.
“But of course that is the situation we inherited.
“As at last count, we had out of the 54,000 prisoners that we have across the country, 38,000 of them are awaiting trial.
“And only about half of it, 16,000, have actually been convicted.
“And those that have been convicted, we are attending to them.”
Moro also spoke on what is being done to rehabilitate those that have been convicted to make them useful to the society after serving jail terms.
He said: “They re attending our regular courses.
“Some of them are in the Open University, some of them are writing examinations and have registered for JAMB, writing NECO, obtained first school leaving certificate and the rest of them.
“Part of the rehabilitation process that will make them effectively integrate into the society.
“Every effort that we are making now is to ensure proper decongestion of our prisons.
“While we are making every effort to make prisoners have access to justice, we believe that we must put them in decent accommodation and so we have aggressively embarked on the expansion of our prisons.
“And like I told council today, we have completed blocks of prison in Kaduna, in Kano, in Ahoada and sundry other places.
“Works are at various stages of completion in some of our hospitals.”