A Non-Governmental Organisation, Alliance for Good Governance and Democracy has cried out over an imminent starvation of inmates in Nigeria prisons.

The group in a statement released by its National Coordinator, Shadrack Nwokolo and its National Secretary, Jimi Sanwo, in Abuja on Monday, September 11, 2017, stated that the inability of the Nigerian Prison Service to pay contractors supplying food to the prisons for the past two years is brewing a food crisis.

The statement said, “We gathered that most of the contractors borrowed money from financial institutions with huge interest rates. We are concerned about the welfare of inmates and that was why we were in the vanguard for the upward review of their daily  feeding allowance from N200 per day  to N450 per day, which we still admit to be  grossly inadequate considering the cost of food items in the country”

The Federal Government in January 2015 increased feeding allowance for prison inmates from N200 to N450 per day inclusive of gas allowance which is yet to be fully implemented.

Conclusively, they called for the intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Interior  Abdulrahman Bello Dambazzau, to avert stoppage of food supplies to the prisons by the contractors.

Editor