By Evelyn Usman

Lagos—In a move to address the issue of congestion of prisons in Lagos state, the Nigeria Prisons Service, NIS, Lagos State Command weekend, disclosed that it was liaising with the state’s Ministry of Justice to fine tune modalities whereby inmates who have stayed long in prison are freed.

This is just as nine babies were delivered at the Kirikiri Female Prison, between January and June 2016.

Controller of Prison, CP Lagos State Command, Mr Tinuoye Olumide, made the disclosure during his maiden visit to the Kirikiri Female Prison.

Olumide, who assumed office as the command’s boss three month ago, further stated in its pursuit to decongest the prisons, the command was also making effort to ensure that the sentences of Condemned Criminals, CC were converted to life imprisonment.

He said “As I speak, we have about 168 condemned inmates in Lagos prisons. Globally, people are gradually stopping the issue of hanging CC.  So, we want to see that sentences of the CC are converted to life imprisonment. By that, definitely, we will be able to decongest the cells wherein they are. We have a lot of prisons that can take life imprisonment inmates and that is definitely what we are going to do.”

He also expressed satisfaction over the condition of the female prison, attributing it to the effort of the officer in charge, Deputy Controller of Prison, DCP Lizzy Ekpendu.

In her remark, Ekpendu, who also marked the  birthday of one of the inmates , described as false media report that there was an uproar by inmates recently, over alcohol intake.