Nigeria prison service>>>>>spokesman says to reform prison inmates

Qen abdulraham

The Nigeria Prison Service (NPS) says it
is committed to ensuring that inmates
are reformed before they leave the
prison.
The spokesman of the service, Mr
Francis
Enobore , said this in an interview with the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday,
in Abuja.
``We have the primary, secondary and of
recent, tertiary institutions in the prison,
courtesy, the National Open University of
Nigeria (NOUN) into which a number of the
inmates have keyed and are running various
programmes.
``These things are all ongoing. It is our
desire to ensure that no prisoner goes out of
the prison the way he or she was when they
came in.
``That has been the policy thrust of the
present Controller-General of Prison.
``He is committed to seeing that no prisoner
leaves the prison the way he came.
``He wants to ensure that one way or the
other prisoners are reformed and do not
return to their previous lifestyles.’’
Enobore said that NPS had provided inmates
with opportunities that would make them
better citizens at the end of their jail terms.
``We have a number of skills acquisition
centres across the country and we have a
plethora of skills like welding, shoe-making,
dress-making, and farming which we are
trying to recuperate now going by the recent
economic structure in the country.
``We have 14 large farm centres across the
country and a number of small agric projects
like fishery, poultry, piggery, cattle rearing
and all of that.
``These programmes are all going on and a
number of inmates are been trained in
them.’’
He said the standardisation effort of the
Minister of Interior, retired Lt.-Gen.
Abdulrahman Dambazzau , had addressed the
challenges in the prisons.