Baptist Convention president advocates better welfare in correctional centres

President of the Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC), Dr Isreal Akanji has charged the Federal Government to see to the well-being of inmates at various Correctional centres in the state.

NBC boss disclosed this when he led other members of the church to the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), Agodi, Ibadan, as part of the programmes marking his birthday on Monday.

He decried poor welfarism for Prison inmates across the country, saying the welfare of inmates becomes necessary considering their contributions towards the development of the nation when rehabilitated.

Akanji urged the government not to neglect service to humanity, adding that inmates are also human beings and fellow Nigerians.

“There’s always room for improvement, the government should improve upon its monitoring of what is happening in our Correctional Center. It is not just enough you sent people to jail for 10-15 years, are you monitoring their reports about various prisoners?

“These inmates have made mistakes, all of us one time or the other also made mistakes in life, but God’s mercy has covered our mistakes, that is why ours didn’t go to their own kind of situation.”

“We are not superior to them, we are here to tell them that their mistakes are not the end of life, there is hope and we are expecting them outside.”

“The greatest thing you can give to humanity is love, we believe that word of God and activities of the Correctional Center would bring newness to them, for us as a Christian, this is a command and mandate, and we are even sorry that we have not done enough, we can only ask God to forgive us to do more for these people.”

Also, the group as part of their service to humanity distributed loaves of bread to all 1,145 inmates in the Center, remodelling the roof of the church inside the Center, and spiritual mentoring of the inmates.

In his remark, the Assistant Command, NCS, Agodi, Ibadan, Samuel Ayodele thanked the Baptist President for his gesture, saying that the government is trying its best on the facilities and inmates, but feeding over 1,1400 inmates in the Center daily was not an easy task for the government.

He however called on well-meaning Nigerians to emulate NBC President and contribute their quota towards service to humanity, saying that those inmates would still be useful to the nation after their jail term.