Aregbesola charges CGoC not to relent after EU merit award

The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has charged the Controller General of Corrections (CGoC), Ja’afaru Ahmed not to rest on his oars having bagged a merit award from the European Union (EU) for his achievement on human capacity development and infrastructure upgrade.

This charge was coming as a result of the award presented to the corrections boss during the closing ceremony of project activities support to the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) by the European Union (EU) civil Head of Preventing Terrorism and Organised Crime, Anne-Claire Zirnhelt at the Service’s National Headquarters Abuja.

Aregbesola said that plenty of ground is still needed to be broken.

“I hereby charge you not to rest on your oars having bagged a merit award from the European Union (EU) for this achievement on human capacity development and infrastructure upgrade.

“There is plenty ground needed to be broken,” Aregbesola said.

Head of Preventing Terrorism and Organised Crime, Anne-Claire Zirnhelt, said achievements of the Service on the successful training and mentoring of instructors of the training institutions and de-radicalisation programme earned Ja’afaru the award and urged him to do more to bring the desired change to the Service.

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The EU project coordinator assistant to NCoS, Saka Azimazi, while congratulating Mr. Ja’afaru, noted that the achievements in the areas of infrastructural development, provision of drugs for inmates, educational and vocational training, expanding crop and animal husbandry at the correctional farm centres for inmates’ training and many more earned the NCoS a new name.

He also described the repealing of the Nigerian Prisons Service Act, CAP P29 Laws of the federation 2004 and enacting the Nigerian Correctional Service Act 2019 as a significant milestone towards the development of the service.

Ja’afaru, however, dedicated the award to the entire officers and men of the Service, stating that it was an honour in recognition of the collective effort of the entire workforce.

He also promised to do more and urged all members of staff of the Service to ensure that they do not only maintain the standard but surpass what has already been done so as to meet international best practice.

It would be recalled that in the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, the Federal Government sort the collaboration of international development partners to work out modalities to deal with the menace.

While the military pursued hard approach, the soft approach, compromising counter-narratives, deradicalisation and re-socialising extremists, were domiciled in the Nigerian Prisons, now Correctional Service.