Tinubu Govt Inherited 256 Prisons Facilities That Needs Rehabilitation – FG Declares As Audit Begins

The federal government has commenced an audit of the 256 prison facilities nationwide.

Naija News reports that the FG expressed concern over the fact that some of them are between 60 and 100 years old.

The Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, disclosed that rehabilitation works have commenced in some facilities to make them more habitable and meet global standards.

Tunji-Ojo made the remarks shortly after visiting the Janguza Correctional facility in Kano and the Kuje Medium Custodial Centre, Abuja, where rehabilitation works have reached an advanced stage.

The Minister toured the facilities with the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Dr Aishetu Ndayako and the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Correctional Service, NCoS, Haliru Nababa.

The Minister noted that the ongoing reforms of the Correctional Service were aimed at decongestion of prisons, improved welfare of inmates and personnel of NCoS and ensuring that the Correctional facilities indeed live up to their names.

He mentioned that the NCoS has provided an atmosphere for self-development in a way that inmates now pursue educational careers upto PhD levels, while a particular inmate who acquired Masters’s degree had written three books to his credit.

Tunji-Ojo said: “We are in Kano to see the 3,000-capacity Maximum Security Custodial Centre, which of course, is work in progress. It is about the intervention of the Administration in terms of our Custodial Centres and I can tell you that work is still going on. We are not where we want to be obviously. So, it is work in progress basically.

“And here in Kuje, this is just one of the many Custodial Centres that we are renovating at the moment and as you can see, all the perimeter fencing have been concluded. They are all concrete.

“All the security infrastructure, which I cannot disclose in public, have been out in place and even when you talk about the welfare, the cells have all been renovated, there are more facilities and the ambience is good. You can see it yourself that this is not the Kuje facility that you used to know.

“Obviously, Renewed Hope is on course. President Bola Tinubu is working on our Custodial Centres and not to forget, a young man, one of the inmates today gifted me about three books authored by him.

“He has been here for like 12 years and today he has finished his first degree through the National Open University of Nigeria NOUN, he has finished his Masters Degree and is about enrolling for his PhD. That is the positive story about Nigeria that I want people to see.

“These shows that our Custodial Centres are no longer ‘Prisons’. They are now correctional. They are transformational. They are reformatory institutions and Nigerians can know that the Renewed Hope Agenda is not just about the strongest in the society. It is about both the strongest and the weakest in our society.”

The Minister stated that work is ongoing at the Suleja Custodial Centre, including building a new center.

He highlighted that there are 256 custodial centers inherited by the current administration, many of which require rehabilitation due to their age, some being 60 to over 100 years old.

He noted that President Tinubu is committed to intervening in the correctional system to avoid passing on a defective system.

According to him, an empirical and scientific facility audit is being conducted to identify problems and find solutions, aiming to decongest the centers effectively using data-driven approaches.