Hard time for Nigerian Prisoners as Food scarcity looms in prisons over N6bn debt

Prisons inmates across the country may be thrown into hunger from December if urgent steps are not taken to settle the outstanding bills of food contractors.

The contractors, under the aegis of Nigeria Prison Service Ration and Gas Contractors, have already made their intention to stop supplying food and gas to prisons from December known in a letter addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari.

In a letter dated 13-11-2015, signed by the association’s President, Chief S. K. Sanni; National Secretary, Mr. Eugene Agro; and the National Vice President (North West), Alhaji Ibrahim A. Asarakawa, the contractors confirmed that the Federal Government's indebtedness to them stands currently at N6B Naira.

In a letter copied in the letter are the Minister of Interior and the Comptroller-General of Prisons, the contractors confirmed that they do not have the financial might to carry on supplying food and gas to the prisons and confirmed they have not been paid since January 2015 and appealed to Buhari and the people in charge to clear the debts to enable them carry on supplying food to the inmates.

The situation, they added, forced them to resort to taking bank loans with all the accumulative interests, even as some of them sold their houses and other properties in order to meet up.

In the years past, the contractors said the Federal Government used to pay them two weeks ahead of time.

The letter read in part, “Needless to say that if prisoners and inmates of the nation’s prisons are not fed for two days, they could go haywire and the consequences are not good to imagine.

“We do not want any national embarrassment for Mr. President and his new government.

“We are therefore appealing to the Commander-In-Chief to mobilise funds from anywhere to settle our bill before it is too late, knowing that top on his priority is security.

“We have endured long enough.”

Punch.....................................