Why Buhari renamed Nigeria Prisons Service

President Muhammadu Buhari has signed into law a legislation by the National Assembly changing the name of Nigeria Prisons Service to Nigeria Correctional Service.

The law also creates two broad departments namely: Custodial Service and Non-custodial Service.

By this legislation, according to some experts, State Controllers of Service are now empowered to reject more intakes of inmates where facilities are filled to capacity in order to address the issue of prison congestion.

Section 12 (2) (C) of the new legislation also empowers the Chief Judge to commute death sentence to life imprisonment where an inmate sentenced to death has exhausted all legal procedures for appeal and has spent 10 years without execution of the death sentence.

(Credit: DailyTrust)