Enugu Chief Judge frees blind octogenarian,numerous inmates

The Enugu State Chief Judge, Justice Innocent
Umezulike on Tuesday concluded his two-day jail
delivery exercise at the Enugu Prisons, releasing 83
year old man, Mr. John Ugwu and numerous others in
the process.
The exercise, which was carried out with seven other
judges mobilized by the Chief Judge, centred on
juvenile and asylum matters.
The octogenarian, who was remanded in prison
custody in August 2010, was brought to the court in a
stretcher as he had become blind and could not walk.
The Attorney-General of the State and Commissioner
for Justice, Mr. Anthony Anih, said the state could not
continue to prosecute the criminal proceedings
against Ugwu, who was standing trial for murder.
Justice Catherine Nwobodo discharged the accused on
account of his condition.
Similarly, many other accused persons regained their
freedom and some got bailed.
Speaking at the end, Justice Umezulike promised to
carry such exercise regularly, at least twice in a year.
“Never have we been able to do so much since I took
the centre chair of the Enugu High Court,’’ he said,
commending the stakeholders who made the visit
possible.
Also speaking, the Attorney General, Anthony Anih
reiterated his commitment towards ensuring that
cases were speedily tried and disposed without
waiting for jail delivery service by the CJ.
The Controller of Prisons in the state, Mr. Chris
Ntewo, pledged to send quarterly reports about the
prisons’ situations to the appropriate authorities for
appropriate action.
He said that warders were trained to handle convicts,
but that, those awaiting trial had far outnumbered
convicted inmates in all the prisons in the state.
The Enugu Prison, with the capacity to accommodate
just 638 inmates, had 1,529 persons, among them
1,179 awaiting trial, representing over 80 percent of
the total inmates in the prison.
One of the inmates discharged, Nkechi Kanu from Imo
state who was remanded in prison custody for the last
ten months by an Nsukka Magistrate court for assault
on her lecturer at UNN, thanked the CJ and AG for
granting her unconditional pardon.