By Henry Umoru

ABUJA—THE move by the Senate to remove the ownership, control and operations of prisons from the exclusive list of the constitution to concurrent yesterday scaled second reading.

The Senate’s position is expected to break Federal Government’s monopoly of ownership and management of Prisons, if the Bill is finally passed into law.

The resolutions of the Senate were sequel to amendment of three bills on prisons reforms, sponsored individually by Senators Shaba Lafiagi,APC, Kwara North;  Babajide Omoworare, APC, Osun East and Oluremi Tinubu, APC, Lagos Central.

The sponsors of the Prisons bill were allowed time independently to lead separate debates on their proposals, during which they convinced their colleagues on the dire need to repeal the extant Prisons Act.

Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over yesterday’s plenary, said  when passed into law, state governments and other stakeholders in the country, including individuals, would be licensed to build and operate prisons.

With this, the present structure where the Federal Government has full monopoly of prisons’ operations would then be jettisoned.

In her lead debate, Senator Tinubu, noted that incidences of women serving jail terms while pregnant or nursing infants was known to many nations of the world.

She called for special accommodation to meet prenatal and postnatal needs of pregnant inmates, designate structures as nurseries to be staffed by qualified persons where the infants shall be placed when they were not in the care of their mothers.

She also advocated that the fight against stigmatisation of babies born in prison be stopped by providing that the circumstances of their birth shall not be included in their birth certificate.

Senator Tinubu said, “My colleagues in the seventh Assembly would recall that the plight of infants in prisons gave cause for concern which prompted the members of the Women Aff