The Federal Government spends N10 billion annually to feed 70,000 prisons inmates and persons awaiting trials. It is also considering privatising the prisons for effective management.
Minister of Interior, Lt.-Gen Abdurrahman Dambazau (rtd), made the disclosure yesterday in Kaduna at a town hall meeting on President Muhammadu Buhari’s one year in office.
The theme of the meeting is “Change starts with me.”
“Our prisons are congested with close to 70,000 prisons inmates and awaiting trials.
“Quite a number of them are there because they cannot pay fines and some of them do not have fair justice. We required N10 billion every year to feed them,” he said.
The minister said government would explore ways to reduce the huge feeding cost of the inmates and was considering privatising the prisons for effective management.
Advertisement
Dambazau also said that the clash between herdsmen and farmers was a challenge to the government. “This is an issue that is bothering us because it has a long history and not only in the country; Ghana has a similar challenge.
“We held a strategic meeting so as to see how we can tackle it, but we realise it is not only in Nigeria, so we need to look at it in a wider scope.
“It is a problem that moves around the whole Africa region,” the minister said.
He said that the Federal Government would introduce biometric identification at border posts to tackle problems of arms and drugs smuggling.
Dambazau said that the use of the biometric identification would check human trafficking and tighten security at the borders.