According to information released by the federal government, roughly 67% of prisoners housed in correctional facilities nationwide are awaiting trial. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the interior minister, revealed this information on Thursday during an interview with Channels Television’s Politics Today program.
According to Tunji-Ojo, enhancing correctional services requires strong collaboration between the federal and state governments.
The minister said, “We can work out a synergy, you know, states that want to have their own correctional centres, by law, they’re entitled to have it and federal too, but we must also understand that about 72 per cent of our inmates are state offenders and about 67 per cent or so are awaiting trials.
“So it means two-thirds are state offenders, but the Federal Government is the one taking responsibility now.
“I don’t like to shift blame. As Mr President will always say, ‘We were elected to produce results, not to make excuses.’ So we’re not here to make excuses, but as a government, we will interface with our governors. We will come together to be able to have a shared strategy towards solving these correctional problems”
In July, the minister announced that 4,550 offenders had been released by the Federal Government as part of efforts to relieve the overcrowding in Nigeria’s prisons.
He claimed that the change followed a review that focused on prisoners who had been incarcerated for extended periods of time and those who had been detained for minor, bailable offenses.
Tunji-Ojo went on to say that even though correctional facilities were in poor shape when President Bola Tinubu took office in 2023, his administration is dedicated to turning them around.
