13 mentally ill persons dumped in prisons by family members - Comptroller General, Ahmed Ja’afaru

Ahmed Ja’afaru, the Comptroller General of Nigerian Correctional Service has revealed that the service has in its custody 13 mentally ill persons who were dumped in prisons by their family members. He said that the unscrupulous family members procured remand orders from the court which were used to keep the sick individuals in prison illegally.Addressing a news conference on the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, 2019, in Abuja on Thursday, the CG explained that the law prohibited the use of correctional facilities for indiscriminate dumping of persons without due regard to their state of health or age. According to him, Section 13 subsection (3) empowered a prison Superintendent to refuse to admit persons brought in with severe bodily injury or anyone who is mentally unstable, or in an unconscious state or underage. He said, “We have some family members dumping mentally unstable persons in prisons. They simply procured a court order to remand the sick individuals who should be taken to psychiatric hospitals in prison. This new law would curb all that. Presently, we have 13 mentally ill inmates in our prisons.”   Jafa’aru explained that the impact of the new law would soon be felt in the service, noting that officers would be trained on the non-custodial aspect of the law which he said would be implemented nationwide. He hinted that the new Act had brought succour and hope to the 2,742 inmates on death row, adding that any of the condemned men and women who had spent 10 years on death row after exploring all legal options were eligible to have their death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.The CG said, “Previously, this category of inmates live under the suspense and mental torture of death which the appropriate authorities would neither sign nor easily commute to life imprisonment.“Section 12 subsection 2 (c) of the NCS Act now provides that where an inmate sentenced to death has exhausted all legal procedures for appeal and a period of 10 years has elapsed without the execution of the sentence, the Chief Judge may commute the sentence of death to life imprisonment.”   The post 13 mentally ill persons dumped in prisons by family members -Comptroller General,Ahmed Jaafaru appeared first on Linda Ikeji Blog.

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