Illegal rehabilitation centres, child of necessity ― FCT Chief Judge

The Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory, Justice Ishaq Bello on Tuesday said that the establishment of unlawful rehabilitation centres, some of which were discovered recently was because of the absence of the Federal Government-owned rehabilitation centres in the country.

Justice Bello who is also the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Correctional Service Reform and Decongestion, was speaking in Abuja, while answering questions from newsmen, shortly after the briefing of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) on the forthcoming national workshop on the effective implementation of the provisions of the Correctional Service Act, 2019.

The FCT Chief Judge described the establishment of unlawful rehabilitation centres as a child of necessity because the Federal Government has no such centres to rehabilitate drug-addicted children and those involved in other social vices.

According to him, no parent is willing to be killed by his or her child, who is into consumption of hard drugs and other heinous crime, but will rather chose to take them to the “unlawful” rehabilitation centers with the hope that when they get rehabilitated and became changed, they will return to their parents.

According to him, “the discovery of the unlawful rehabilitation centres should be a wake-up calls to the federal and state governments to set up rehabilitation centres to reform erring children.

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While noting that his committee will do its best to identify and visit such unlawful rehabilitation centres, he also commended the FCT minister, who had promised to set up a rehabilitation centre in Abuja to address the menace of drug-addicted children who are menace to their parents and the society.

Earlier in his address, Justice Bello gave a concise statement on the activities of his committee since inception till date, wherein he said, the committee has travelled to 34 prisons in 16 states of the country and a total of 3,768 persons were released during these visits via payment of fines for convicts for minor offences with the option of fine for those, who are unable to pay the fines, general review of peculiar cases and advocacy overtures to relevant authorities.

In his remarks, the Minister of Justice threw his weight in support of the activities of the Justice Ishaq Bello-led committee, charging the committee to come out with a legal framework to pave way for policies that would address the issue of unlawful rehabilitation centres in the country.

Recall that there were discoveries of illegal rehabilitation centres in some parts of the country where both children and adults are being detained and allegedly mal-treated by operators of such centres.