Anambra prisons are hell on earth – Deputy Controller

 

THE Deputy Controller of Prisons in Awka, Anambra State, Mr. Mathew Kalu, has decried the poor conditions of prisons in the state, describing them as hell on earth.

Kalu spoke on Sunday when a philanthropist and the leader of the Progressives Peoples Alliance in Anambra State, Mr. Godwin Ezeemo, visited Awka and Aguata prisons in the state in commemoration of his 59th birthday.

He called on President Mohammadu Buhari to look into the welfare of prison inmates in the country, observing that prison inmates in the state were facing hardship and had no support from the government.

Kalu said, “Government is not doing anything apart from feeding and you can imagine the type of food that will sustain the inmates. What is sustaining them in this place is God.

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“We are suffering and we need a rescue mission. When I came in August, 2015 to Awka Prisons as DCP, I discovered that a prison that has capacity of 238 inmates was accommodating about 490 inmates and this is unhealthy. But because of the recent goal delivery by the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Peter Umeadi, the inmates were reduced to about 437. About 50 inmates stay in a room and share themselves at night to sleep.”

The Assistant Controller of Aguata Prisons, Mr. Paschal Ibegbulem, corroborated Kalu’s position.

Ezeemo, while addressing inmates and staff of the prisons, said he had not come to preach sermon to them, but to celebrate with them on his birthday to give them that sense of belonging, reminding them that they were not abandoned or neglected.

Ezeemo told them not to see themselves as failures, but as being in the prison for reformation, saying, “In the advanced world, being in prison is like one having a rest, but in Nigeria, it is a different ballgame. But we must not continue to profess negativity. We should be positive in everything we do.”