As part of efforts to decongest the Nigeria Correctional Service, Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has set free 3,717 inmates from 2015 to 2021.
This was contained in a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Abba Anwar.
Anwar revealed that the move was in response to President Muhammadu Buhari’s appeal to state governors to help in decongesting correctional centres in the country.
The statement stated that the governor made this known when he received members of the Presidential Committee on Correctional Centres Reform and Decongestion under the chairmanship of Justice Ishaq Bello, at his office last Thursday.
“President Muhammadu Buhari thought it right when he called for the decongestion of our Correctional Centres, looking at the happenings in those Centres. That, we should respect life and we should have hope in our inmates,” he stated.
However he noted that the state adopted two major strategies to respond to the call by the president.
“We put in place a Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy, under which we release inmates two times in a year; all during Sallah festivities – Sallah-El-Fitr and Sallah-El-Kabir. So far, we have released 3,717 inmates from 2015 to date.
“We paid for them, fees they were not able to pay that landed them in those Centres. We also gave them transport money after they regained freedom. We recruit some of them into the state civil service.