PRISONS BILL TO BE PASSED SOON

The Amended version of the Prison Bill will soon be passed into law by the National Assembly. This was said by the Chairman of the House of representatives Committee on the Interior Honourable Jerry Manwe when the Controller General leading other officers appeared before the Committee to harmonise aspects of the bill that needed clarification. Speaking at the occasion, the House Committee Chairman expressed regrets that the Prisons bill could linger before the National Assembly for as long as 7 years without passage, pointing out that whatever it was that stood between the Bill and its passage in the past must be overcome this time around stating that in this era of rule of law and due process, an important institution such as prison should not be guided by outdated laws. Earlier the Controller General had informed the House Committee that they came in response to the invitation of the Committee to harmonise the provisions of the Bill so that it can be taken to the next level for consideration and passage. He informed the Committee that the Bill which reserved its first public hearing in 2002 had been in the National Assembly since 2001. He wondered why the Bill could not be passed into law stating that lack of current legislation was hampering Prison reforms. He reiterated that his mission was to move the Prison from what it is today to a correction-based enterprise pointing out that a current legislation on the operations of Prisons in Nigeria will be a great help. He admitted that some problems are continually militating against the reforms of the administration of the Prisons but adding however that if the new law is passed some of these challenges such as ATP congestion will be dealt with by law. There were questions raised by several members of the Committee on aspects of the Bill that were not clear to them while some of these questions were adequately answered, those that were found to be ambiguous were returned for further elucidation. Those the House completely disagreed with were expunged from the Bill. In the process, the Bill was given a very deep scrutiny by the meeting with every section, every article and every sentence being subjected to a very careful review. At the end of the interaction, the Chairman directed the Prison Team to go and provide clarification to the agreed grey areas and provide the necessary literature to justify the changes sought by the Prisons. But he was quick to point out that the Committee was not under any obligation to adopt whole scale all the proposals made by the Prisons pointing out that the Bill will still be scrutinised by other experts before it goes to the floor of the house. Present with the Chairman were other members of the Committee including the Deputy Chairperson Hajia Adaji Maimunat Usman while the Controller General of Prisons had in his entourage Dr Ekpendu, ACG, Mr Shemfe, CP, Mr Obong, Legal Adviser, Dr Orakwe, DCP Mr Kinane, ACP, Mr Gegele, the Assistant legal Adviser.

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