FG budgets N3.5bn to buy 350 vehicles for prison

The Federal Government has approved the purchase of 350 operational vehicles for the Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS).

According to a memo by the Minister of Interior, Gen. Abdulraman Dambazzau (rtd) to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday, the development was part of the effort to strengthen the criminal justice system in Nigeria.

He decried a situation where many prison inmates and even the accused had been incarcerated wrongly for lack of vehicles and other logistics to take them to court for fair hearing.

The minister added that about 65,000 prisoners with about 70 percent persons awaiting trial had suffered unjustly in detections for lack of vehicles to take them to about 5,022 courts which were scattered in the country. Dambaazzau, however, noted that the vehicles would be procured from local manufacturers.

He said: “In our efforts to strengthen criminal justice system and to also contribute towards decongesting the system, we presented a memo for the procurement of 320 operational vehicles for the prison service at the cost of N3.5 billion.

“This procurement is from local manufacturers, assemblies and vendors with Nigeria and the effort is to follow through government policy to ensure that most of the procurement of the equipment and such vehicles are done locally. That will also provide opportunity for job creation and things like that.

“But for the prison system in particular, we are making efforts‎ in a way. You know the prisons being one of the legs of the criminal justice system, the others being the police and the judiciary, is to see how best we improve in terms of conveying prison inmates to courts in particular so that we do not jeopardize their chances of their getting justice‎.

“This has been happening because for a very long time the prison system has suffered lack of operational vehicle and as such quiet a number of prisoners remain in prisons longer than necessary, because they do not have the opportunity to be conveyed to the courts. So this is the essence of this. “So‎ we are glad that council approved this procurement. And along the line we want also to ensure that we provide for maintenance to ensure that the vehicles are well maintained and that there used for purpose there are meant‎ to be used.

He explained that the prison population had surged to about 65,000 prisoners, out of this about 70 per cent are awaiting trial.

The minister said that part of the problem was lack of logistics, because there were 5,022 courts that on daily basis.