Commission to monitor Nigerian prisons

Mr. Ewa Udu, Head, Legal Unit of the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) has said the commission will henceforth monitor the plight of inmates in Nigerian prisons.

In fulfilment of this, the commission’s representatives would visit various prisons to investigate the plight of the prisoners and ensure that their cases were treated promptly.“

“The commission will move into various prisons in the country to monitor activities and issues of inmates awaiting trail. “We have discovered that those awaiting trail are higher than those who are serving sentences in the prisons, which ought not be,’’ Udu said in an interview with NAN.

He said that the commission had also discovered that some of the prisoners were innocent, adding that the body’s intervention would change the situation.

“some of the prisoners are suffering for what they do not know about. For some, their files have been in the Police Station for a very long time without forwarding them to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).“Only those who have money can approach the police to forward their files to the DPP for legal opinion,’’ he said.

Udu added that the commission would get data of the inmates, investigate their cases and liaise with police to ensure that the files were forwarded to the DPP without further delay.He said that the commission would collaborate with the Legal Aid Council to achieve the goal.“Some of the prisoners don`t have means to get a lawyer, so Legal Aid Council will help to see that lawyers give their assistance on cases without delay,’’ he said.

He said the commission needed to employ more lawyers to enable it monitor some of the activities in the courts and prisons. Udu added that the commission had commissioners in the 36 states of the federation as well as a chief Commissioner monitoring activities in Abuja.“Now that we want to checkmate the activities in various prisons, the commissioners will help to make the work easier and faster by monitoring prisons in the 36 states and bringing their reports to the headquarters where we will compile the reports,’’ he said.