Our Reporter
The lawmaker representing Onna State Constituency in the Akwa Ibom House of Assembly, Mr. Nse Essien, has secured freedom for 67 inmates of Uyo Correctional Centre.
He said on Thursday that the gesture was his contribution towards decongesting prisons, which, according to him, were filled up with inmates with minor bailable offences.
Essien said that the inmates freed by him over five years were people who could not pay fines ordered by the court over minor and civil offences.
Said he: “I have been paying fines for inmates and securing their release from prison since I became a lawmaker about five years ago and I intend to continue with the gesture as long as I remain in the House of Assembly.
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“I am motivated to do this because of my love for humanity and God. Many of us are fortunate to have freedom, but there are those who are not as fortunate may be because of their acts of commission or they find themselves within the confines of the prison yard.
“Some of these people might not have committed the offences for which they were imprisoned. Some could have been where they shouldn’t have been at the wrong time.
“Again because of poverty, they could not pay the fines. So, some of them are in jail for three years due to their inability to pay a fine as low as N100,000.”
The legislator urged privileged persons, non-governmental organisations, religious organisations and corporate bodies to join in the campaign to decongest correctional centres across the country.
“If we have more people and organisations who join me in paying little fines to free inmates, our prisons will not be congested and the facilities in our correctional centres will not be overstretched,” he said.
Essien hailed President Muhammadu Buhari for changing the name from Nigerian Prisons Service to Nigerian Correctional Centre, saying prisons should not just be a place of punishment, but also a centre for skills and knowledge acquisition.
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