He made this observation while touring the facility in the state’s Keffi Local Government Area, one day after 16 prisoners were said to have fled.
The News Agency of Nigeria says that the governor was toured around the prison by officers of the Nigeria Correctional Service.
Abubakar Umar, the NCoS’s Service Public Relations Officer, confirmed the incident on Tuesday and stated that seven of the 16 prisoners have been apprehended thus far, with a manhunt underway to apprehend the remaining nine.
Sule engaged with NCoS personnel and convicts during his visit to the penitentiary facility with high-ranking government officials to examine the repercussions of the jailbreak.
Shortly after doing an inspection tour of the facility, Sule spoke with reporters and mentioned how crowded it was.
According to him, the majority of the prisoners awaiting trial in the institution are those whose cases were heard in the Federal Capital Territory, which explains the backlog.
He pledged that his administration will look into ways to expedite the accused’s trials in order to ease facility congestion.
He urged the prisoners to follow the law and behave well.
The governor stated that he had ordered the state government to provide the center with 500 mattresses in order to improve the living conditions of the prisoners, pointing out that many of them were sitting on the bare floor.
Additionally, he declared that a million naira would be donated for the prisoners’ maintenance.
Sule restated his goal of gathering information in order to determine the cause of the early-morning incident on Tuesday.
Finding out why the jailbreak occurred was one of the reasons I chose to attend, in addition to learning about it.
According to what we observe, jailbreaks are occurring all throughout the nation. But for us to experience that, I wanted to know why it happened. Was it the kind of structure they were housed in or the welfare of the prisoners?
First and foremost, I realized that most of the prisoners here are awaiting trial in the FCT’s courts. “They are not awaiting trial in our Nasarawa State courts,” he stated.
In an effort to relieve the pressure on the Keffi Medium Correctional Center, Sule stated that the state government would like to collaborate with the appropriate authorities in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, to expedite the trials of prisoners awaiting trial who are now housed there.
The governor informed reporters that it was his duty to speak with FCT representatives to determine the most effective way to relieve the congestion at the Keffi Correctional Center.
“Through our chief judge, we will get across to the chief judge in the FCT. I realize that the Attorney General of the Federation would also need to be engaged in order to see how we can resolve this,” he said.
Sule pointed out that even while there was every need to improve on the facility’s security, addressing the immediate unhappiness amongst the convicts would minimize the frequency of jailbreaks in the country.
“We must continue to work on improved security, but I don’t think that it is the absence of security that caused what happened here. Some of these resentments and grievances might have contributed to what transpired,” he stated.
He urged residents of the state to be on guard and report any suspicious individuals to security services, and he praised service members and police as well as other security agencies for re-arresting some of the escapees.
