OPEN LETTER: Grant Inmates Pardon, Clemency, Former NBA Scribe, Aruoture Tells Okowa

"Your Excellency, the benefits of this policy would be immense for your administration, the state, the criminal justice system, the repentant inmates, and the society. It would have a win-win outcome"....Aruoture.

The immediate past Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA Warri Branch, John E. Aruoture has written an open letter to the Delta State Governor, Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa with an appeal for him to emulate the Federal Government by granting pardon/clemency to inmates in the five custodial centres of the Nigerian Correctional Centres with a view to decongest same in the State.

The Warri based legal practitioner who is also a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NBA national body said 

He said,"By virtue of these visits and resultant interviews of officials and prisoners, the need to decongest the over-crowded prisons and their over-burdened facilities have become pertinent.

"From available data, all over the nation, there are approximately 74,127 inmates in the nation’s correctional centres. About 52,226 are pre-trial inmates, 21,901 are convicts, with some of these convicts on death row. 

While the Federal Government has embarked on the exercise of granting pardon/clemency to convicts of federal crimes, our beloved Delta State also needs to carry out a similar exercise for convicts of state crimes. 

"This urgent need necessitated this passionate appeal to Your Excellency, Senator (Dr.) Ifeanyi Okowa, the Executive Governor of Delta State.

"I appreciate that Your Excellency needs to create a careful balance between ascertaining the befitting inmates of the correctional centers that should be re-integrated into the society and the need to keep the society safe".  

"However, there are inmates that have truly repented and others who have spent so much time in the correctional centers and could be said to have duly paid for their crimes. 

"In addition, there are inmates who have become sources of positive influence/role models in many positive ways in the various correctional centers. Some of these inmates have become pastors and imams etc. in the correctional center and have dedicated their lives to the service of God and humanity. 

"I humbly opine that such inmates may rightly be given a second chance and a window of opportunity to be re-integrated into the society".

"It is my humble suggestion that when these repentant inmates are released, they should be given a mandate to report to an administrative body for probation for a period of between 6 months to 2 years until they have shown that they have become full responsible members of the society deserving of the new privileges accorded them.

"Your Excellency, the benefits of this policy would be immense. 

Firstly, it would create a favourable impression about the desire/intention of His Excellency to ameliorate the pains of the inmates/convicts that are genuinely repentant. 

"Secondly, it would lead to a decongestion of the various correctional centers. It is a notorious fact, derivable from all the prison visits conducted by the various Honourable Chief Judges of Delta State, which I was privileged to attend and witness in my capacity as Secretary of NBA, Warri and as a legal practitioner, that the correctional centers in Delta State are plagued with congestion and over-usage of facilities. There are too many inmates in the five correctional centers in Delta State. 

"Third, when released, each of these inmates should be handed over to sureties, that are either responsible and respected clergymen and women or other responsible members of the society, who would also report their findings to the administrative body set up to be probation managers of such inmates. 

"Fourth, all such properly integrated inmates would become sources of inspiration and guidance to the youth and members of the society, on the right way to live and the need to avoid all forms of criminal activities.  

"Fifth, the Probation Manager would come up with a streamlined program, to run for many years, in different zones of the state. This program would be designed to properly integrate inmates and ensure that such inmates become positive symbols to the youth and impressionable minds. 

"Suffice to state that your Deputy, His Excellency, Deacon Kingsley Otuaro, who is also a highly esteemed legal practitioner, while acting in conjunction with Christ Embassy Church, had done a wonderful job of trying to ensure the inmates of the correctional centers have a paradigm shift in their mental attitude, geared towards steering them away from all forms of criminal activities. His Excellency, the Deputy Governor, thus has a first-hand knowledge and experience of the challenges of the correctional centers, and more importantly of the need to rehabilitate the inmates into the larger society. 

"Your Excellency, the benefits of this policy would be immense for your administration, the state, the criminal justice system, the repentant inmates, and the society. It would have a win-win outcome."