Foundation for Peace Professionals (NGO) championing advocacy for release of un sentenced prisoners in Nigeria has urged the federal government to increase the percentage of inmates being considered for freedom from 30 to 70%.
The group, also known as PeacePro commended the move by the Federal Government of Nigeria to free 30% of Nigerian prisoners, but advised the federal ministry of interior, led by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola to increase the percentage of consideration from 30% to 70%.
This, it said, is to ensure a total overall of the correctional facilities, owing to the fact that more than 70% of inmates in the country are non-convicted prisoners.
In a statement by the executive director, Abdulrazaq Hamzat, Peacepro maintained that setting free suspects, who have been held in detention without trial for a long period of time, is far more honourable than keeping people perpetually in prison over petty offences.
The group argued that such perpetual incarceration of un sentenced prisoners is considered “destructive incarceration” rather than “correctional incarceration.”
Hamzat had previously said that the advocacy to end “destructive incarceration” in Nigeria is part of Peacepro’s recommendation to the federal government in the Nigeria Peace Index (NPI) report, a national replica of the renowned Global Peace Index.
He said data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had shown that over 72% of people in prison cells or correctional facilities across Nigeria are un sentenced prisoners, some of whom had spent over 10 years in prison, for a crime that if convicted, they would probably spend less years in jail.
The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, said this when he appeared on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.