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NBA Calls For Establishment Of State Prisons

By Joseph Onyekwere 
29 August 2015   |   12:21 am
THE Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) yesterday urged the Federal Government to place the management and funding of prisons under the concurrent or residual list so that both Federal and State governments can be responsible for prison services.
PHOTO: nba-slp.org

PHOTO: nba-slp.org

THE Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) yesterday urged the Federal Government to place the management and funding of prisons under the concurrent or residual list so that both Federal and State governments can be responsible for prison services.

The NBA said such has become imperative in the interest of national development and federalism.

The association’s position was contained in a communiqué issued and endorsed by its President and Secretary, Austine Alegeh SAN and Mazi Afam Osigwe, respectively, at the end of its week-long general conference and meeting in Abuja.

“The Prisons being a part of the administration of justice should be placed under the office of the Attorney General.

“Holding charges must be done away with being a strong contributory factor in prison congestion. Alternative means of punishment to be introduced to our jurisprudence rather than incarceration for simple offences.

“The state of a country’s prisons provides assessment of the value a country places on its citizens and on human rights. In this regard, Nigeria needs urgent penal reform,” the NBA said.

The body of lawyers stated that a stumbling block to penal and prison reform in Nigeria is the fact of the management and funding of prisons being the exclusive preserve of the Federal Government.

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