By Hammed Shittu
Kwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq, has granted executive pardon to 101 inmates at Oke-Kura Maximum and Mandala Medium correctional centres in the state.
The release was in line with the directive of the federal government for the decongestion of prisons across the country as part of efforts towards curtailing the Coronavirus pandemic in the nation.
Speaking with journalists yesterday in Ilorin on the development, the State Comptroller of Correctional Service, Mr. Adebisi Francis, said that 83 of the total number of inmates who benefited the government gestures were released outrightly.
Francis said that the sentences of two inmate were also reduced from eighty years to 10 years while 16 condemned inmates were reduced to life imprisonment.
He urged the freed inmates to always shun all criminalities and be useful to the society at large.
He added that state had given the inmates second chance and they should return their gesture by contributing their quotas to the society.
He said further that the beneficiaries were those that had served 75 per cent out of their jail term, those with challenge and aged inmates.
Francis, however, appreciated the governor for giving the freed inmates palliative that would aide their incorporation into the society.
