ABUJA-The federal government incurs N2.36 billion annually on feeding of awaiting trial inmates in the nation’s prisons, consequent upon the country’s slow justice delivery system, investigation revealed weekend.

At least, 41, 600 inmates are in Nigerian prisons, with 64% or about 32,800 constituting awaiting trial.

Findings also revealed that with N200 feeding rate per inmate daily, the N2.36billion annual cost of feeding 64% awaiting trial inmates constitutes just a fraction of other costs incurred by the Federal Government in keeping 32,800 non-convicts in the prison system.

Investigation revealed that with just about 8,800 convicts, the nation’s prison infrastructure, despite being largely archaic, would have been able to cope with the prevailing number of convicts.

A source who did not want to be mentioned, confided that “government’s approved rates of feeding prison inmates daily is N200. It means that prison food contractors supply food and ration to  Nigerian Prisons at that amount.

“With 32,800 extra mouths to feed, that is those who should not even be in the prison holding system, it means that more money was being spent on feeding.

“But assuming the justice system is fast to determine who is a convict or not, it would translate into more savings, with some of these monies useful in modernising the prisons.”

He argued that with the current convict population of about 8,800 fed with N633,600,000 annually, government would have saved about N1.7 billion yearly on feeding alone.

Findings by this reporter revealed that the nation’s large prison population had stretched infrastructure to its utmost limit, with official projections indicating that only a complete overhaul would avert collapse of prison infrastructure in the next five years.

The increasing population of awaiting trial inmates, it was learnt, has also contributed to the inability of prison authorities to devote much of their budgetary allocation to capital projects, including modernization of existing infrastructure.