The Assistant Comptroller of Minna Prisons, Malam Musa Adamu, has disclosed that only 42 out of the 276 inmates in Minna prisons have been convicted.

Adamu made this disclosure in Minna when the members of State Bankers Clearing House Committee paid a visit to the prisons as part of the activities lined up to mark its 2009 end of the year programme.

He explained that many of the inmates awaiting trial have spent several years in the prisons while some others have remained there because they had no money to engage the services of legal practitioners.

According to him, only three women were among the inmates awaiting trial, a development which he said, has attested to the fact that men are more prone to crime than women.

The assistant comptroller expressed delight with the visit and recalled that in the past non-governmental organistions were prevented from visiting prisons in the country.

Adamu said with the new trend, NGOs, corporate organisations and individuals had visited the prisons with one assistance or the other.

He commended the wife of the state governor, Hajiya Jumai Aliyu, for donating a skills acquisition centre to the prisons for the use of both the officials and the inmates

The Chairman of the bankers committee, Alhaji Mohammed Kabir Dan Gusau, said the visit was part of the activities to mark the 2009 end of the year programme of the committee.

Dan Gusau, who is the Minna Branch Controller of the Central Bank of Nigeria, made a donation of N30, 000 to facilitate the release of four of the inmates who were convicted but had no money to pay for their fines.

He explained that the gesture was to facilitate the re-integration of the convicts into the larger society and to help de-congest the prisons.