Worried by the high rate of involvement of youths in committing crimes, the Chief Judge of Kogi State, Justice Nasir Ajanah has urged governments, parents and other change agents to re-orientate youths to move away from committing crimes. Justice Ajanah, who made this call after reviewing 80 cases of awaiting trial inmates at Okene Medium Prison at weekend, stated that urgent attention must be paid to activities of the youths who are now committing very serious crimes.
He lamented that the youths who are supposed to be outside helping their society to grow are detained in the prison custody for committing very serious offences such as culpable homicide, kidnapping, rape and armed robbery. Justice Ajanah also expressed dismay at the high rate of kidnapping cases in the state, stressing that Kogi State has the highest number of kidnapping cases in the country. “There is need for complete re-orientation of our youths to move away from committing crimes and move towards a better society”, he stressed.
He also explained that there were large number of cases which would be moved to High Courts for assizes for two weeks towards the end of April 2016 where there will accelerated hearing of all criminal cases. The Chief Judge who noted that during the case review exercise, a total of 80 awaiting trial cases were reviewed stated that one inmate was granted unconditional release and five other inmates were released on bail with various amounts and sureties who must ensure their appearance in various courts pending the determination of their cases. “We were here last year for the same exercise; what is more funny here is that most the cases here are very serious in nature such as armed robbery, rape, kidnapping and culpable homicide ”, the CJ noted. He disclosed that the facility though has capacity for 160 inmates, it currently has only 110 inmates and was not congested like that of Koton- Karfe prison.
Credit: National Mirror
