Fides Media Living the Faith
By Chioma Ndife
In discharge of his constitutional duties, the Chief Judge of Anambra State. Justice Onochie Anyachebelu, Last Wednesday, released about 10 inmates among who were nine men and one woman at the Onitsha Correctional Facility.
Some of the inmates released included Ifeanyi Egwuatu and Ebuka Molokwu who are mentally sick.
Others are Johnson Ojukwu Okolo, a native of Anaku in Ayamelum LGA of the state; Okechukwu Okeke, a native of Awkuzu in Oyi LGA of the state; Uwadiegwu Edeh from Enugu State; and Francis Oluchukwu from Imo State.
Also freed were Arinze Nwoke from Ohofia in Ebonyi State; as well as one Mmesoma Okafor, a house wife, who was detained since February, 2022.
The Chief Judge said that those released were inmates whose detention were manifestly unlawful; those detained for a period longer than the maximum period of imprisonment which the person detained could have served had he been convicted of the offence of which such a person was detained for; as well as old and very sick inmates.
According to him, the exercise was part of his constitutional duties, which, he said, was a fast way of decongesting correctional facilities. He urged all that benefited from the gesture not to go back to their ills but to contribute more quantitatively for the betterment of society.
The Deputy Controller of Corrections in the Onitsha Correctional Centre, Mr. Val Nwosu, said the CJ’s jail delivery would help decongest the prison and bring sanity.
He urged the judiciary to ensure that there was quick dispensation of justice, especially as it concerned awaiting trial inmates, so that the faculty would not be unnecessarily decongested