Election - Fighting corruption not about jailing people – Aliyu

The Governor of Niger State, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, on Wednesday said that fighting corruption is not all about sending people to prison not minding how grievous or little offence individuals have committed.

Aliyu also challenged Northern politicians on the need to discard politics of bitterness characterized by violence, while advising them to work for the common interest of the North.

While receiving the new zonal Assistant Controller of Prisons (ACP), Mrs. Dorothy Agu Attajiri, who paid him a courtesy call at government house, Aliyu suggested that prison system should be modernized to give room for domicile states to play complimentary roles in dictating what transpired therein.

The governor apparently to counter the philosophy of throwing people behind bars all in the name of fighting corruption in some quarters said, “Fighting corruption is not only about clamping people into prison.

“Hauling people into prison yard over allegations of corruption will only lead to prison congestion as many of the inmates will end up turning into hardened criminals when they get mingled with hardened criminals as inmates.

“We have heard cases of homosexuals thriving in overcrowded environment such as prison yards”, Aliyu said.

He pointed out that prison yards in most cases turn individuals with minor offences into hardened criminals.

Expressing concern that many of the prison inmates were confined behind bars for minor offences that would require as low as N5, 000 to be left off the hook, the governor therefore urged the state Commissioner of Justice, Alhaji Abdul Wuse, to visit prison yards more often to ensure that people with less offence were set free.

Meanwhile, Aliyu has called on politicians in the North to emulate the late Aminu Kano and Ahmadu Bello who although belonged different political parties but worked for the common interest of the north when the need arose.

Aliyu said he is of the views that Northerners should be more interested in what would have long time positive effects on the people of the region against the interests of some few individuals whose ideals would rather drag the region backward.

“I remember in the days of Ahmadu Bello and Aminu Kano. Aminu Kano belonged to the opposition but they always pursue a common goal when it mattered on the common interest of the north without necessarily going violent”.

The governor blamed the security challenges that caused region from developing for years to the belief in having many children and appealed to northerners to have the number of children they could carter for as too many children would expose them to being used by the terrorists as kid suicide bombers.