Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has condemned the three-year imprisonment of a 28-year-old auto mechanic, Akeem Jimoh, who was convicted for “stealing yam worth N35,000.”
Jimoh was convicted on Wednesday by an Osogbo Chief Magistrate Court after he pleaded guilty to a one-count charge of “theft.”
When asked by the court why he committed the act, Jimoh said he stole the “17 tubers of yam due to hunger” and “pleaded for leniency.”
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The presiding Magistrate, Muibah Olatunji, sentenced him to “three years in prison with hard labour and without any option of fine.”
Commenting on the jail term in a statement to PUNCH, Falana said that the country’s “sentencing policy” needs to be “reviewed to make it more humane.”
He questioned why “scarce public funds should be wasted on the upkeep of convicts jailed for petty offences” like that of Jimoh.
He said, “It is high time that the sentencing policy of the country was made humane. Why should the government be made to waste scarce public funds on the feeding, accommodation, and medical care for the convict who was jailed for stealing tubers of yam worth N35,000?
“The attention of judges and magistrates ought to be drawn to the fact that judicial officers in capitalist countries have stated that it is no longer a crime for the poor to steal food to feed themselves and their family members.
“Meanwhile, we have briefed a lawyer to file an appeal against the conviction and the three-year jail term of Akeem Jimoh.”
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