A member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mr Victor Akande, has commended the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s commitment to decongest and improve condition of correctional centres in six months.
Akande, representing Ojo Constituency I at the Lagos State House of Assembly gave the commendation in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lagos.
NAN reports that Aregbesola had on Wednesday said that a committee had been set up to look into how the Federal Government could decongest the prisons in six months.
The lawmaker, is the Chairman, House Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, Public Petitions and the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC).
He decried the obsolete nature, poor condition and congestion of correctional centres in the country.
According to him, the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) should be real centres for character reformation of criminals, instead of being a place where criminal are hardened.
“The minister’s plan is a very good radiance, a right step in the right direction. We need more people like Ogbeni in positions like this. They will be able to turn things around.
“We need people who know how a correctional centre should be. I appreciate him for setting up a committee on correctional centre decongestion.
“We need to decongest our centres and get better results. This is a welcome idea.
“We must redouble work on making our correctional centres real. This is where the inmate gets counsel and we develop them in various skills where they are good at and employ them.
“This is better than just feeding them, punishing them unnecessarily but we must turn them and make them productive to take care of themselves after leaving the centres,” Akande, a lawyer said.
He said that the condition of the centres had made criminals to be more hardened when finally released into the society instead of being correctional centres.
Akande said inmates could be engaged in farming, carpentry, civil engineering and others instead of just confining them.
The lawmaker added that the NCS should redouble efforts at engaging inmates to have a reflection on what they had done with the aim of changing their minds.
“We place inmates in a situation where they cannot think but to become harden criminal. Our prisons instead of correcting criminals harden them and that is not good.
“Some innocent people who found themselves in prison by error, those with minor offences and placed with genuine criminals become bigger criminal by the time they are released.
“More pain is the fact that our society sees them as outcasts which always brings psychological trauma of rejection,” he said.
He said the government should put more money in building standard correctional centres with enough facilities and ensure that the inmates were made to be productive while serving their jail terms.
“The NCS should take a cue from the western world and understudy how correctional service should be and replicate same in the country,’’ he said.
The lawmaker, who noted that NCS should not just be giving subvention but be allowed to generate revenue, called for a summit on making Nigerian Prisons real correctional centres.
Akande, who commended Lagos State for its efforts on criminal justice system, urged the government to look inward in speedy dispensation of criminal justice to decongest prisons.
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