NIGERIA: Nigeria plans to free as quickly as possible up to 65 per cent of its prison population - those inmates who have been awaiting trial for years - in an effort to resolve one of the worst blots on its human rights record.
Prisoners who have been awaiting trial for five years or more and those who have been in jail longer than they would have been if convicted are among up to 25,000 eligible for immediate release under a government plan approved late on Wednesday.
"The issue of awaiting-trial inmates has become an endemic problem in Nigeria . . . The conditions of the prisons are just too terrible. The conditions negate the essence of prison, which is to reform," said Justice Minister Bayo Ojo.
Mr Ojo has said the average waiting time for a trial was between five and ten years. He said six "halfway houses" would be established across Nigeria to rehabilitate prisoners and offer them professional training before they go back to their communities.
Prison authorities said simply freeing inmates without such services would be like releasing "poison" on to the streets because many had been traumatised and hardened by their experiences behind bars. - (Reuters)