FG restates commitment to decongestion of correctional centres

THE Federal Government has disclosed plans to ensure decongestion of all correctional centres across the country.

Minister of Interior, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, who made this known in Abuja, noted that the purpose of setting up such centres was to rehabilitate, reform and reintegrate inmates back to the society.

He spoke while responding to a question on the congestion of prisons in Nigeria, at the Joint Public Hearing on the 2020 Federal Government Budget, organized by the Appropriation Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, at the National Assembly.

He stressed that the Federal Government was passionate about decongestion of correctional centres in the country.

According to him, the Prisons Decongestion Committee set up by the Federal Government is working with the Attorney General of the Federation, state governments, the judiciary and other relevant stakeholders in the justice sector with the aim of ensuring that only those with critical offences, considered as felons are kept at the various correctional centres.

He said that one of the policy objectives of the Muhammadu Buhari administration is to ensure total transformation of the Nigerian Prisons Service to a modern reformatory institution so as to enable it to operate in line with international best practices.

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This, according to him, led to the signing of the Nigerian Correctional Service Act 2019 into law by the present administration.

“I therefore wish to reassure you that in line with the above policy thrust of government, we will do everything humanly possible to ensure that in the next 180 days, we will put the issue of congestion of prisons behind us,” the minister emphasized.

Aregbesola added that there are about 75,000 inmates at the various correctional centres across the country, saying that they are no longer referred to as prisoners, in line with the new Act.

He noted that the new law allows correctional officers to reject offenders who are being brought from the courts to the centres, if there is no capacity to accommodate them.

Speaking earlier, the Senate President, Senenator Ahmed Lawan, had said the two-day joint hearing on the 2020 Appropriation was to get public views and inputs before the passage of the budget in December, 2019.

‘We should congratulate ourselves as Nigerians because we have all resolved to ensure that the country is moved to the next level of socio-economic development in line with the policy thrust of the Buhari-led administration which is security, revitalisation of the economy and entrenching transparency in government business.”

Nigerian Tribune