Posted by From JOE EFFIONG, Uyo on
Two young men in Ikot Ekpene would ever remain grateful to the wife of Akwa Ibom state governor, Mrs Ekaette Godswill Akpabio for saving them from the hangman's noose over a GSM handset, or was it because of a girl?
Two young men in Ikot Ekpene would ever remain grateful to the wife of Akwa Ibom state governor, Mrs Ekaette Godswill Akpabio for saving them from the hangman's noose over a GSM handset, or was it because of a girl?
The duo of Marshall Friday Udo and Samuel Eseme Stephen, have just walked out of the Ikot Ekpene federal prison after Mrs Akpabio, through her pet project, Family Life Enhancement Initiative, intervened on their behalf.
They had spent more than a year in prison arising from charges of conspiracy to steal, stealing of handset and cash, brought against them.
Though they claimed that they never stole the phone but only had a fight with the complainant over a girl, they however, promised to henceforth be of good behaviour as they were rushing back to continue with their vocation in carpentry and aluminium fabrication.
Udo and Stephen were among the 26 prison inmates recently freed through the intervention of the Family Life Enhancement Initiative. A total of 12 were freed in Ikot Ekpene, 10 from Eket and four from Uyo prisons. The release was a result of the efforts by legal consultants contracted by Mrs Akpabio to assist indigent prisoners who cannot afford legal services, to get access to justice, and free those who have not been found culpable of the crimes for which they were detained.
The press secretary to Mrs Akpabio, Mr Ekerete Udosen, told Daily Sun that the 'hire of legal consultants to assist indigent prison inmates is one aspect of Mrs Akpabio's prison intervention programme; the other comprises skills acquisition programme which teaches economic skills and value re-orientation that seeks to recondition the inmates for life outside the prison walls and discourage them from activities and conducts that brought them to the prison in the first place.
'So far, about 200 inmates have benefited from the skills acquisition and value orientation programme in Uyo and Ikot Ekpene prisons," Udosen said; adding that Mrs Akpabio had in the course of her mission to the prisons inmates donated 50 mattresses and beddings each to four prison formations in the state.