The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has announced that the Federal Government is allocating N500 million to secure the release of 4,000 inmates from correctional facilities across Nigeria. He made this revelation during an interview with Arise TV.
Addressing the issue of decongesting correctional facilities, the minister disclosed that there are 4,000 inmates currently incarcerated because they are unable to pay fines totaling over five hundred million naira. He assured that these inmates would be released within the next four weeks.
Tunji-Ojo stated, "The first thing I did immediately upon assuming office was to establish a committee to review the situation in our correctional centers. We found that more than 4,000 of these inmates, as I have said before, are still in custody due to their inability to pay a total fine of about five hundred and something million.
I can tell you that we have made significant progress in engaging the private sector for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and other efforts to pool this money together."
He concluded, "By the grace of God, in the next one month, we will have been able to pay the fines for over 4,000 people, reducing the current inmate population of 79,000 to 75,000."
