By Chinwe Imo-Eze Onwosi
Wife of Ebonyi State Governor, Mary-maudlin Uzoamaka ogbonna Nwifuru, Wednesday, secured the release of 53 prison inmates at the Abakaliki correction centre.
The inmates comprising of 2 females and 51 males regained freedom following the offset of fines and bail conditions by the first lady of the state.
Speaking during the ceremony, in Abakaliki, Wednesday, Mrs Nwifuru who is also the founder of Better Health for Rural Women, Children, and Internally Displaced Persons (BERWO) Foundation, said the reform programme was born out of her passion to bring succor.
Mrs Nwifuru disclosed that the Governor Nwifuru led administration supported her to clear all the debts of the inmates in line with her pet project, BERWO.
According to her: “My modest project, Better Health for Rural Women, Children, and Internally Displaced Persons (BERWO), provides succour for the less privileged, giving them assured hope through our numerous programs.
“Moved by the condition of these inmates and the sense of duty as the mother of this state and worsened by overcrowding of this centre, I brought it to the knowledge of my husband, the father of the state, for his esteemed intervention and he didn’t hesitate in giving his fatherly support by undertaking to pay the court fines and requirements of the perfection of the bail condition to secure the release of the inmates from the custodial centre.
“We are giving the released inmates N20,000 transport fare and we will also sponsor them on vocational training so that they can be self-reliance and desist from their old ways of life. She stated.
The Governor’s Wife, however charged the inmates to embrace becoming better and reformed citizens.
Earlier, the state attorney general and commissioner for justice, Ben Odoh, said that the released of 53 inmates has reduce prison congestion at the Abakaliki Correctional center
He said all hands must on deck to change the dilapidated state of the criminal justice system in the State.
“Our situation in the criminal justice system is in a dilapidated state and is gasping for help.”
Odoh, appreciated the wife of the governor for releasing 53 out from prison.
One of the Inmates, Mr Abel Nkwuda , thanked the Governor’s wife for her gesture of releasing them this Christmas season, and promised not to go back to their old ways of involving in any crime that will bring them back to prison.
