Alleged non-implementation of increase in N5.6 billion allowance undermines Delta’s prison inmates’ welfare

prison

The alleged non-implementation of the N5.6billion allowance increase announced by the Federal Government for prisoners nationwide is reportedly stirring starvation for inmates in Delta State.
The gesture, pronounced in January 2015, increased feeding allowance for prisoners from N200 to N300 per person, excluding perks for gas, which is N150 per inmate daily.
By the development, the total provision for feeding prisoners in Nigerian prisons stand at N450 daily. The N5.6 billion, it was gathered, covers ration and gas supplies.
Statistics at March 6 2017 showed the nation’s prisoners were 68, 258. Of the figures, 46, 351 are awaiting trial while 21,903 are convicted.

Investigation revealed that while some contractors were reportedly paid in the months of January and February 2015, payments from March to December of the same year and the entire 2016 remain pending.
An advocacy group, Alliance for Good Governance and Democracy in a statement by its national coordinator and secretary, Comrade Shadrach Nwokolo and Jimi Sanwo noted: “We discovered that contractors responsible for food supplies are being owed huge sums of monies for the services they rendered to the Nigeria Prisons Service for over two years.”
The group, which called on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the matter, insisted that the current feeding allowance of inmates was grossly inadequate in the face of the current economic realities.
But officials at the Ogwashi-Ukwu and Agbor prisons contested the starvation claims.