by Rachel Ogbu

About 202 suspected members of the Boko Haram sect are in police custody across the country and they make up the 36,874 inmates awaiting trial.

The Nigeria Prison Service released the figures recently and Comptroller-General,  Zakari Ibrahim, said 1,113 inmates were already condemned to death and awaiting execution or commutation to life imprisonment but the service was under pressure from the European Union, human rights groups and Western countries not to do so.

Ibrahim at the service’s national headquarters in Abuja said:

“The situation is more worrisome as relevant authorities who have the constitutional powers to either authorise execution or commutation to life imprisonment are reluctant to exercise such powers. The implication is that prison security is mostly threatened.”

The Punch reports:

The prison boss also told the senators that about 11 prisons have been so far attacked by persons suspected to be Boko Haram members since the insurgency in the country started, with 1,637 inmates set free, adding that most of the inmates had been recaptured.

Responding, Abubakar urged the prison authorities to always voice their challenges, giving the assurance that the Senate was always willing to assist if their problems were known.

Meanwhile, the Federal Fire Service has described the reorganisation of the service done in 2007 by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo as ‘a mistake.’

The service declared that if the country was serious about fire disasters and prevention, adequate attention would have been given to the organisation.

FFS Controller-General, Olusegun Okebiorun, said this in Abuja on Wednesday when he received the Senate Committee on Interior in his office.

Okebiorun condemned the 2007 restructuring policy, which approved that FFS should become a regulator of the fire service in the country without functioning fire stations, adding that the organisation “required improved attention to be able to deliver requisite service to the nation at optimal level.”