Senators yesterday sang discordant tunes over the fate of about 16,400 Nigerians languishing in prisons across the United Kingdom (UK).
Some Senators wanted the National Assembly to pass a resolution which would compel the Federal Government to bring the prisoners back home as the UK Government spend £1.6m to feed the prisoners per day. Others countered that the nation’s economy cannot accomodate such influx.
This came up during the debate on a bill for an Act to repatriate Nigerian convicted prisoners serving various jail terms in the Common Wealth countries sponsored by Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN).
Senator Benedict Ayade told the Senate that “in the United Kingdom alone, Nigerians serving various prison term are 16, 4000 in number and it cost the UK government about 1.6 million pounds per day to feed them.”
Senate President David Mark expressed unhappiness at the number of Nigerians serving jail terms in the UK alone.
He said: “There are safeguards in the bill, but I am shocked to hear that there are 16,400 Nigerians in various prisons abroad, this is a thing not to be proud of, we don’t know the authenticity of the figure, but it calls for concern. The lesson is that we should improve our prisons for the purpose of reformation, it is not right to transfer the responsibility of reformation to other nations.”
Leading debate on the bill, which seeks to amend the transfer of convicted offenders (Enactment and Enforcement) Act, Senator Ndoma-Egba who sponsored the bill which was read for the first time on July 20, 2011 stated that the bill was to give effect to the Common Wealth scheme on convicted offenders between Common Wealth countries.
He added that the bill was seeking to amend the provisions of the extant Act by removing the consent and verification procedure of returning convicted prisoners to serve their term in Nigeria.
Ndome-Egba noted that the present Act is replete with some deficiencies that if not adequately addressed would jeopardize its execution, adding that it was the recognition of the inherent shortcomings in the extant Act that necessitated the need to amend it.
To effectively streamline the law, the Senate Leader insisted that Sub-section 5(1)(d) and Section 8 of the Nigeria Constitution, seeking the consent of the convicted offender and which has to do with the consent and verification of the convicted offender of the principal Act were to be amended respectively.
Senators opposed to the bill insisted that the financial implication of transferring prisoners back home would be too much for the country to shoulder. They also said that apart from the action being an infringement of fundamental human right of an individual, they also said that nobody would be convicted abroad especially the UK and would like to serve his jail term in Nigeria even if it was just a week.
The bill was however referred to Committee on Judiciary, Human Right and Legal Matter when constituted.
Culled from : Daily Sun
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