The Nigerian Senate and federal government are gradually waking up to their responsibilities and the realities and challenges facing Nigeria as a country, especially her citizens. The Nigerian population is rumoured to be around over 180million people, and over 60% of this figure are mostly youths, who are also unemployed, and underemployed.
Given economic challenges in the country, most of these youths are left with no choice but to result to crime in order to make a living for themselves, after so much frustration.
The result of this is them ending up in police custody, prisons, where majority are either taken to court and tried before sentencing, or put on an awaiting trial for decades, while some are even forgotten. This menace in our prison system have been overlooked by successive government since the before Independence and after Independence, there by resulting in over crowded jails all over the country, that even those ‘awaiting trials’ and minor crime offenders are mixed with hardened criminals. 
During the public hearing, some of the Senators made their summations on the issues, and these were updated on the twitter handle of the Senate:
one-day public hearing on the following Bills:
1. Prisons Act CAP P29 LFN 2004 Bill (SB. 125);
2. Prisons Act CAP P29 LFN 2004 Bill 2016 (SB. 288);
3. A Bill to re-enact the Prisons Act (SB. 191); and
4. Correction, Reformation and Re-integration centre (establishment, etc) Bill, 2018 (SB. 308).Senators present at the public hearing were Senators: Oluremi Tinubu, Jide Omoworare, Clifford Ordia, Andrew Uchendu, Nafada Bayero, Shehu Sani and Senator Andy Uba, chairman Senate committee on Interior.
“There should be establishment of seperate prison facilities for the women, the female prison should be seperated physically with a certain distance from the male prison.”- Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
“There should be an establishment act for Chief inspector of Prisons with not less than 40- 50 staff which can be recruited in the civil service, there should be a bureaucracy and should not be under the ministry of interior and ministry of justice.”- Wale Oloyede
“The major problem is finance, if this bill is passed it will form additional expenses, extra security will be needed, how do you hope to cope with all these?”- Senator Bayero Nafada
“430 prisoners graduated from National Open university of Nigeria.”- Comptroller General of Nigerian Prisons Services, Ahmed Ja’afaru
Senator Oluremi Tinubu advocated special care for Pregnant women and children under 0-3yrs, says some NGOs are willing to also assist in this regard.
“Lack of political will is the bane of our problem. Are there no options you could propose to incorporate in the new bill to give relief to those confined to death instead of execution.”- Senator Andrew Uchendu.
“We have 2,281 condemned inmates nationwide who have exhausted their appeals and are awaiting the death penalty but the governors are not willing to sign their death warrants which is causing congestion in the prisons.”- CG Nigerian prisons services, Ahmed Ja’afaru
“Present condition of our prisons is a national embarrassment, there’s a need for Prison Service Commission so they will function better than they are now.”- Senator Clifford Ordia.
“For someone who is wrongly convicted, say after 10yrs, he is found to be innocent, do we just allow him walk away without compensation.”- Senator Andy Uba.
In response, Senator Shehu Sani narrated his prison ordeals and says that compensation of prisoners should not be the burden of the Nigerian Prisons.
Senator Andy Uba harped on the need for other agencies of government to submit their outstanding reports for proper scrutiny.
CREDIT: Twitter/NGRSenate