The executive governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi has distributed a total sum of N120 million to over 2,500 traders in the state, with an assurance that his administration will continue to ensure enhanced trading activities through government policies, so as to actualize a stable economy of its desire.
The governor, while addressing a horde of market men and women at the Lekan Salami Sports Complex, Adamasingba, Ibadan on Wednesday. He also dispelled the rumours being peddled by the opposition that his administration had been demolishing shops and other means of livelihood of the people of the state.
According to him, the only structures that his government ever removed were those trading by the roadsides.
Governor Ajimobi, who was assisted in the distributed of cheques by his deputy, Chief Moses Alake Adeyemo, his wife, Mrs. Florence Ajimobi and the Chairman of the State Market Advisory Council, Alhaji Dauda Oladapo, said that the gesture was in fulfillment of his earlier promise to the market men and women, artisans, caterers, traders and indeed the people of the state that his government would positively touch the lives of everyone.
“Trading, as we all know, is the livewire of commerce in any given economy. Our administration is very much aware of this and is doing everything humanly possible to make life better for the people of the state,’’ he said.
It would be recalled that interest-free loans had earlier been given to traders and artisans in the state, the first time ever in the history of the state, one of which was the N20 million given to traders at the newly-constructed Scout Camp Market at Challenge, Ibadan.
On his administration’s urban renewal and environmental sanitation programmes which culminated in the removal of traders from the streets, Governor Ajimobi said it was done to ensure the environmental, health and safety of the people of the state.
“We removed illegal traders only in Ibadan, said to be, before now, the dirtiest city in Nigeria. By removing illegal traders from underneath the bridges and roadsides where there were no toilets, we have reduced the incidence of cholera and communicable diseases to the barest minimum.
“Those trading under high-tension wires were also removed for their own self-safety while flood-prone area traders who were removed have reduced our flood incidences,’’ he said.
The governor, who said that people still sell by the roadsides till today, added that they had only been moved away from deadly road paths.
“Check traders at Bode in Molete up through that stretch of road to Gate area, we never demolished a single shop. We only asked the traders to move from dangerous road-paths to enhance city aesthetics and give even the traders long life,’’ he said.
Governor Ajimobi further stated that his administration also took a step further by instructing all the 11 local government councils in Ibadan to construct at least two neighbourhood markets each, pointing out while many councils had completed the construction of their own markets, others were at advanced stages of completion.
He listed some of the market already constructed by the council chairmen in Ibadan metropolis to include the Oloosaoko Market, Bodija Market, Bode-Igbo Market, Jonku Market, Alesinloye Market, Gbekuba Market, Bode market, Olorunsogo Market and many others.
The governor assured all the traders in the state that government would not rest on its oars in making life better for them, urging them, therefore, to keep on supporting his administration so that dividends of democracy could get to all parts of the state.
He also implored market leaders to ensure that the interest-free loans go round, adding “our traders must ensure that the loans get to all those who need them, so as to boost their market capabilities.
“The loans are revolving and interest-free. Therefore, it is necessary to make available records of the loans’ disbursement and repayment to the supervising ministry for accountability purposes,’’ the governor said.
Bodies remain littered on the streets of a northern Nigerian town two days after it was seized by militant Islamists, a lawmaker has told the BBC.
Boko Haram fighters were patrolling the streets of Bama, preventing people from burying the dead, Ahmed Zanna said.
The militants captured the town on Tuesday after a fierce battle with government forces.
Bama is the biggest town under Boko Haram’s control. It is fighting for an Islamic state in Nigeria.
On Wednesday, the Nigeria Security Network (NSN) think-tank said the group had made “lightning territorial gains” in north-eastern Nigeria’s Borno state in recent months, raising fears that the country could disintegrate like Syria and Iraq, where the Islamic State (IS) rebel group has declared a caliphate.
Boko Haram has also said it has set up a caliphate in the areas it controls – it is not clear if the two groups are allied.
Mr Zanna, a senator in Borno, said the humanitarian situation in Bama was “terrible” and there had been a “lot of killings” in the town.
“So many bodies litter the streets, and people are not allowed to even go and bury the dead ones. So the situation is getting worse and worse,” Mr Zanna told the BBC’s Newsday programme after speaking to a resident who fled the town.
Boko Haram has captured a string of towns in northern-eastern Nigeria in recent months, fuelling concern that it could advance towards the main city, Maiduguri.
Mr Zanna said it would be “catastrophic” if Boko Haram launched an assault on Maiduguri, which has a population of more than two million.
“I’m begging the government to send more troops and armoury to Maiduguri,” he said.
“Boko Haram do come overwhelmingly because they recruited en masse in the villages [in Borno state],” he added. .
Mr Zanna said government forces had “gallantly” defended Bama, before it fell to Boko Haram.
Residents told BBC Hausa that Boko Haram returned to the town on Tuesday with reinforcements after being repelled by government forces the previous day.
The government has not commented on the fall of Bama.
It had a population of population of about 270,000, but thousands of people have fled the town.
About 10,000 people have fled northern Nigeria for neighbouring states in the past week as fighting escalates, aid workers say.
The Peruvian Minister of the Environment and President of COP20, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal together with the Prime Minister, Ana Jara, and Chancellor Gonzalo Gutiérrez, have announced the achievements made and the next steps being taken in the organisation of the Twentieth Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20), which will take place in Lima from the 1st to the 12th of December this year.
Preparations are ongoing to actualise the COP20 in Lima, Peru
The announcement is framed within the #COP20 AVANZA strategy (#COP20 MOVES FORWARD), launched 90 days before COP20’s inauguration. The strategy establishes concrete progress made and clear targets for Peru’s participation in the most important climate change event in the world.
The Venue
Minister Pulgar-Vidal informed that the official venue of COP20 will take place within the Peruvian Army’s General Headquarters, and spread over a 90,000 m2 area. The place where negotiations will take place was built by the French company GL Events, which was selected in an international call for tenders, and which has broad experience raising and equipping temporary facilities. They have installed the social areas of Soccer World Cups since 1998 with temporary constructions even larger than this one. The construction of COP20 facilities will start on September 15 and end on the first week of November.
The venue will have 30 meeting rooms, two plenary session rooms, two press conference rooms, 11 rooms for side events, 4,000 m2 for office spaces, a press area and an International Recording Center for 100 TV and radio stations, among others.
Inside the main COP20 venue, there will be different services required by participants: religious services, banking, information on accommodations and tourism, food, equipment for rent, telephones, translation and interpretation services, catering for private meetings, medical and cleaning services, among others.
Voices for the Climate
Voices for the Climate will be a participation space located at the Peruvian Jockey Club (Jockey Club del Perú). It will be an area devoted to civil society participation and to generating more awareness among citizens. Achievements and the work conducted globally on five prioritized issues will be presented as well: forests, oceans, sustainable cities, energy, and mountains and water. This space will be open to the public at no cost.
Organisation
Thanks to the creation of the Multi-Sector Task Force, composed by representatives of different sectors and institutions, progress has been made in the plans along different aspects.
As for accommodation for the 12,000 expected visitors, 900 establishments were visited in Lima and 325 hotels from 1 to 5 stars in good or excellent condition were identified. This means that 15,000 rooms and 18,000 beds are available and reserved for those days. Besides, a process of awareness is taking place in hotels, so that these take into account the needs of participants. A communication system has been established to respond to participant questions and queries.
A Food Surveillance Plan is being implemented through the inspection of restaurants and smaller eating establishments in 18 districts in Lima.
Meanwhile a health plan and an epidemiological surveillance plan have been developed and consolidated, and a network of clinics and hospitals has been established so they are ready and in orange alert to offer assistance -if needed- to COP20 participants.
As for transportation, five routes have been defined for the transportation of participants from already identified hubs to the venue and vice versa. A system of shuttles has also been planned from the airport and “green waves” have already been established with the national police for rush hours to prevent traffic congestion.
Security has also been coordinated between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Army’s General Command (CGE). They have set security rings for the main venue, hotels, and airport and have designed security protocols for authorities.
Finally, a protocol has been prepared to facilitate the entry of negotiation teams to Peru, creating an online visa system and generating agreements to exempt diplomatic, service and official passports from visas with 71 countries. At the same time Lima Airport Partners (LAP) will offer facilities to speed up entry during those days.
Benefits
Economic benefits for Peru are estimated to be immediate and to range between $40 and $45 million just for the first month, from expenditures in for example accommodation and food and shopping. In addition to this, expenditure in tourism within Peru have been estimated at around $10 million.
Thanks to this event, Peru could attract many “green” investments. During COP16 in Cancun, Mexico, commitments for $2.5 billion were announced in “green” investments.
It took a public verbal spat between Governor Babatunde Fashola and the Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, over the Ilubirin Housing Estate that is under construction for the project site to attract a second look from motorists plying the Third Mainland Bridge.
Before the tirade, which began in April, the area had generated a passing interest despite being listed among the locations of the Lagos State Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme (Lagos HOMS). The government had planned to build on the reclaimed land a total number of 1,254 flats, comprising two- and three-bedroom apartments on eight floors.
Until recently, Ilubirin was inhabited by Ijaws, Ilajes, settlers from Badagry and migrants from Benin Republic and Togo, who traded on commodities that riverine dwellers are known for. Specifically, their men fished, while the women supplied fish to the major markets in Lagos.
This was until the Lagos State Government demolished the settlement and embarked on reclaiming the place from the sea through the process of sand filling. While the removal of people from the environment was hailed, the reclaiming of land from the sea has continued to attract condemnations.
Those who frowned at the sand filling argued that constant encroachment on the ocean and lagoon does not augur well for the state ecologically and environmentally. They maintained that the damage to the ecosystem by excessive reclamation of land is gradual, accumulative and imperceptible, noting that the effects are irreversible.
While Fashola had taken exception to the minister’s use of military personnel to disrupt the ongoing project, Obanikoro, who represents Lagos in the federal cabinet of President Goodluck Jonathan, had wondered aloud why the state government has decided to build affordable houses on water and with barely a year to the expiration of the governor’s tenure.
“It is no longer a secret that most of the affordable housing communities in the world were built on land and not water. Moreso, the location of the Ilubirin project breaks all the laws on setback requirements for highways and roads.
“This administration has consistently done amateur-styled land reclamation projects across the state, an action that has caused severe environmental damage and extreme discomfort to many families living in Lagos,” he said.
Though the act of reclaiming land from the sea is a global practice, it is surprising that the latest one by the state government to build a low-cost housing estate has generated controversies. With the expertise employed by the government in all its sand filling projects, the existence of fears about ecological and environmental impact assessment of the projects, has somewhat been sustained.
Commenting on the growing incidence of land filling and reclamations going on in Lagos Island, Emeka Okonkwo, an estate surveyor and valuer, said it is a project driven by fraud because the cost of sand filling is going to be 10 times the cost of opening another place.
“There are tablelands all over Lagos. There are places even in swampy areas that can be recreated and redeveloped than going to pour sand in water, which is unreasonable. They reclaimed a lot of places in Dubai but the costs of those apartments are simply ridiculous.
“The island is already chaotic. How are you going to manage the traffic? Yet, the government is spending so much money reclaiming the land when there are slums littering Lagos that could have been redeveloped like Badia. But in the face of profit, money, and tax for government, the action may just make sense. However, as a professional, my advice to government would be opening up other areas instead of sand filling,” he said.
An environmentalist, Chief Osawe Irabor, said he saw nothing wrong with the exercise. “If done in an organised manner, I believe nobody will complain. But when it becomes rampant and reckless, the people must resist it because usurping natural settings could be disastrous in the long run,” he said.
Backing his argument with contemporary examples, Osawe said: “Nearly every part of the Netherlands was reclaimed from the sea. What is happening in Lagos should not be different. Statistics have it that China reclaimed 13,455 hectares of land from the sea in 2010, resulting in earnings of more than 7.82 billion yuan.
“However, with every sense of purpose, I will say that what is happening in Lagos is being driven by the desire to make money. It is business on the part of those doing it because poor people don’t benefit from the houses being built on the reclaimed land. I hope they are being done according to the best practices in order to protect the ecosystem,” he stated.
Still on his worries, he said there are possibilities of buildings erected there to sink while the state stands the risk of being swept off by earthquakes and tsunamis.
A professor of Geography, Prof. Kaine Amikpume, in his environmental impact assessment of the project, disclosed that there are inherent dangers associated with sand filling.
“We must tell ourselves the truth that this is a coastal state. And we are not immune to natural disasters associated with littoral states. It is just that we have been lucky not have experienced something beyond an ocean surge. Continuous reclamation of land from the sea distorts the ecosystem. But if done in an orderly manner with proper environmental impact assessment, the possibilities of failure will be minimal.
“I understand what the state government is going through in trying to meet up with population explosion, but the future of those you are trying to cater for should not be endangered by the same process. Other alternatives to sand filling should be explored to prevent the long-term effect, like opening up tablelands because you pay less to open up tablelands. But when you reclaim, you pay much and that informs the high cost of properties on reclaimed lands.”
It will be recalled that the state chapter of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), had called on the Federal Government to halt the sand filling of the ocean and lagoons in the state in the overall interest of the country. The party also berated the state government over what it described as “deceptive and diversionary evacuation of occupants from areas tagged slums, which was worsened by direct government negligence.”
In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Gani Taofik, the party said the call came on the heels of the frequent ocean surges, which recently claimed lives and property at the beaches.
It alleged that the unnecessary loss of lives and property should be blamed on the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration, which has “remained adamant, irresponsible and only pursuing business interest that it chose to sand fill the ocean in its purported Eko Atlantic Project, where a plot of land is being sold for N350 million.”
The APC had in its reaction through the state Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, said: “We take it that Lagos PDP is far gone in mischief or it is on its well-known antics of conning Nigerians for sympathy when it blamed the ocean surge on the laudable Eko Atlantic City, which is generating worldwide attention.
“We feel that PDP’s greedy inclination which sees every opportunity as fat cow to be milked by greedy party men is leading it into reading such negative meanings into great projects that promise to lift Nigeria from the quagmire it had sank the country into.”
Michael Adegbola Dominic, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Lagos during the 2011 election, sees it differently. “I can only say that Fashola is sinking concrete into the Atlantic Ocean, building bridges across the lagoon to Lekki and Banana Island and all that, but that is not what the majority of Lagosians need.
“The people of Lagos don’t need those concretes he is burying inside Atlantic Ocean, what they need is motorable roads in places like Ayobo, Ejigbo, Ikorodu, Ikotun, and so many other places in Lagos. Fashola is doing something good for himself and his elite friends. The people of Lagos are suffering, they are living in slums.”
“I stand here today as part of a team of dedicated professionals who have worked with me over the past 22 years. It is a tremendous honour for all of us in Durban,” Neil Macleod of eThekwini Water and Sanitation said on Tuesday in Stockholm, Sweden while receiving the 2014 Stockholm Industry Water Award from SIWI chairman, Peter Forssman.
eThekwini Water and Sanitation, serving the Durban metropolitan area, receiving the Stockholm Industry Water Award at a ceremony during 2014 World Water Week, for its transformative and inclusive approach to providing water and sanitation.
In his acceptance speech, Macleod underlined the role policy has had in the success of eThekwini Water and Sanitation. “If the politicians had not dared to take bold decisions, we would not have been able to do what we did. You need an enabling environment,” he said.
South Africa’s constitution from 1996, praised as a model for inclusion of social rights, enshrined the human right to water. Local government was tasked with putting it into practice. Soon after, Durban, one of the country’s main urban centres, expanded its administrative boundaries to include 3.5 million people, some of them living in poorly serviced rural areas with huge water and sanitation challenges. The eThekwini municipality decided to face these challenges head-on.
“We faced huge challenges when we were formed 22 years ago in the lead-up to massive political changes in South Africa. But necessity is the mother of invention,” said Neil Macleod.
“eThekwini has championed the approach to provide sufficient water to sustain human life, as expressed in the South African constitution, now embedded in national policy. The methods used and results achieved by eThekwini Water and Sanitation serve as a sterling example for the many communities worldwide facing similar challenges,” stated the Stockholm Industry Water Award (SIWA) jury in its citation.
In the past 14 years, 1.3 million additional people in greater Durban have been connected to piped water and 700,000 people have been provided with access to toilets. Access to basic water supply and sanitation is provided at no cost to poor families, while higher levels of service and consumption are charged at full cost, thus respecting the constitutional right to water while maintaining financial sustainability.
In addition to successfully providing basic services to a large and diverse population, eThekwini Water and Sanitation is at the forefront of exploring technical and social solutions. One example is a mini hydro-power project: instead of using pressure reducing valves in pipes running down steep hillsides, the company is installing mini turbines using the excess pressure to generate electricity for the city’s low tension grid. The eThekwini municipality is also pioneering solutions to convert urban wastewater challenges to agricultural opportunities as well as harvesting rainwater.
The combined result is one of the most progressive utilities in the world. The open approach to experimenting and piloting new solutions across both technical and social aspects of service delivery has made eThekwini a forerunner in the world of utility-run services.
Water and Sanitation unit of eThekwini Municipalitywas established in 1992. It manages the water and sanitation services for the 3.5 million people living in the Durban area, and has worked with some of the world’s major actors and knowledge hubs in water and sanitation as well as development, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Borda, Eawag, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership and DHI. Its methods have been replicated across the country and region, and eThekwini representatives are successfully sharing and disseminating their findings and working methods.
The SIWA was established in 2000 to stimulate and celebrate outstanding and transformative water achievements by companies in improving production, managing risks, finding solutions and contributing to wise water management. The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) were partners in establishing the award, which is also supported by International Water Association (IWA) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The 5th Annual Public Lecture/Environmental Awards ceremony of The Environment Outreach Magazine with the theme: “Climate Change and its effect on the coastal communities in Nigeria” will hold at the Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre, Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, on Thursday, the 4th of September 2014.
The event, which will be chaired by Professor Oladapo Afolabi, former Head of Service of the Federation, will have the Surveyor-General of the Federation, Professor (Surveyor) Peter Chidozie Nwilo, as the guest lecturer.
Dickson
The special guest of honour is Governor Henry Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, while the guest of honour is the Minister of Environment, Laurentia Laraba Mallam. Royal Father of the Day is King Godwin G. Igodo, The Ebenibe of Atissa Kingdom and Chairman, Bayelsa State Council of Traditional Rulers, among other dignitaries expected at the occasion.
According to the Publisher/CEO of the Environment Outreach Magazine, Chief Noble Akenge, the event will also feature the presentation of special environmental awards in different categories to deserving persons and institutions that have been found worthy of recognition and honour.
He adds that the 2014 Environment Outreach Awards in various categories will be conferred on Governor Dickson; Professor T.K.S Abam of the Institute of Geoscience and Space Tech., River State University of Science and Technology (RSUST): Desmond Majekodunmi of the Nigeria Conservation Foundation (NCF); Professor Lucian Obinna Chukwu, Dean, Post Graduate School, University of Lagos; The National Coalition for Action Against Gas Flaring and Oil Spills in the Niger Delta (NACGOND); “Trees for Tomorrow” (an NGO); Ms. Jennifer Igwe of the NTA; Ovieteme George of the AIT; Professor Peter Nwilo, Surveyor-General of the Federation and Chris Nalaguo Alagoa of Pro-natura Int. (Nigeria).
The event will be attended by persons from the Academia; the organised private sector; professionals of various fields; government officials; NGOs and civil society organisations; representatives of various public institutions; students; environmentalists; traditional rulers and members of the general public.
The Islamic militant group ISIS has beheaded Steven Joel Sotloff, an American freelance journalist who was abducted a year ago Syria, a jihadist monitoring organization said Tuesday.
The monitoring organization, SITE Intel Group, made the announcement on Twitter. It said that ISIS had also threatened to execute a British captive, David Cawthorne Haines.
“We have not seen Steven for over a year, and we miss him very much,” she said in a video message to the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “We want to see him home safe and sound and to hug him.”
Sotloff, 31, wrote about conflicted in the Middle East for Time magazine and other publications. He grew up in Miami and attended the University of Central Florida in the early 2000s. He has aTwitter account, and last posted Aug. 3, 2013, just before he disappeared.
ISIS threatened Sotloff’s life in another video last month. In that video, ISIS beheaded another American journalist, James Foley, and said that it would kill Sotloff unless the United States ended airstrikes against the militant group.
Food and Agriculture Oganisation (FAO) warned on Tuesday that Ebola outbreak in West Africa was threatening food security and placing harvests at risk.
Bukar Tijani, FAO Africa Representative said in Rome that the outbreak had greatly reduced the output of agricultural sectors in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three countries hardest hit by the epidemic.
He noted that the travel restrictions and the establishment of quarantine zones had also restricted trade and transport of goods and services.
Tijani said this had led to panic buying, food shortages and significant price hikes.
“Access to food has become an urgent concern for many people in the three affected countries and their neighbors’’, he said.
Tijani also predicted a major production shortfall in this year’s cereal harvesting season, which is beginning this month.
He warned that labor shortages on farms due to Ebola would have severe implications for food and cash crop production, jeopardising the food security of large numbers of people in the coming weeks and months.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme said in Geneva that it had launched an emergency operation to feed 1.3 million people in quarantine zones and health centers in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. (dpa)
The Chairman, Nigeria Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC), Dr Sam Amadi, has reiterated the commission’s commitment to ensure safe, stable and affordable electricity supply in the country.
Amadi made this known at a public hearing on the Draft Nigerian Electricity Supply and Installation Standards (NESIS) regulations in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said the NESIS regulation was developed by NERC to fulfil its mandate of ensuring effective technical regulation for reliability and safety in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry.
The chairman said the NESIS regulation was up-to-date with basic standards and best practices and covered all aspects of engineering practices as it concerns generation, transmission, distribution and utilisation of electricity in Nigeria.
Amadi assured Nigerians that the commission was equal to the task of developing effective and efficient electricity which requires the commitment and hard work of NERC.
“It should be understood that an effective electricity market that will provide safe, adequate, reliable and affordable electricity to Nigerians is hard work; it requires commitment, competence, doggedness and focus.
“However, the commission is working hard to ensure that the newly privatised power sector rises up to the challenge,” he said.
Amadi warned that anyone who violated the regulation would be punished.
“NESIS regulations are about certain rules; all the utilities have key reporting that tells you interruptions and durations, when they file reports to us.
“It shows that the power is interrupted longer than necessary. We have a division called the engineering and safety division headed by a commissioner that sees to it that regulations are met.
“But what matters is the quality of your regulation, whether you are incentivising the utilities, whether you have created a framework that tells you that something is not being done,” he said.
He commended the Technical Working Group (TWG) on their thorough effort to draw from various codes and standards available in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) and several international standards.
He urged participants and the general public to make necessary suggestions, contributions and comments as they would be highly considered.
Meanwhile, NERC Commissioner, Engineering, Standards and Safety Division, Mrs Mary Awoloku, said that the task of drafting NESIS regulation was assigned to the TWG.
Awoloku said the TWG was mandated to produce a live document sufficient to give all levels of professionals’ guidance to practice in the supply and installation of electrical power and equipment.
She applauded members of the TWG for the work done toward the development of the final draft of the NESIS regulations. (NAN)
No fewer than 30 inmates of Agodi prison in Ibadan have benefitted from the vocational training programmes organised by the Oyo State Command of the Nigeria Prison Service.
The spokesman of the command, Mr Olanrewaju Anjorin, said this on Tuesday in Ibadan while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He said the inmates, who were trained in such vocations as computer engineering and repair of cell phones, graduated on Thursday.
Anjorin said the command often provided working tools to graduates of its vocational centre to enable them to be self-reliant on release from jail, adding that its Aftercare Unit usually monitors the ex-convicts.
He, however, solicited the support of the state and local governments in the provision of working tools, saying the command alone could not bear the burden.
Anjorin also urged Nigerians to refrain from perceiving prisons as centres for punishment instead of institutions for rehabilitating, reforming and reintegrating inmates.
He further advised the judiciary to expedite action on those awaiting trial in order to reduce congestion in prisons. (NAN)
