The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has said that about 2, 745 inmates who have been condemned to death are awaiting execution in its facilities across the country, even as the service urged the state governors to do the needful.
It was also revealed that 22 former members of the dreaded Boko Haram group who have been deradicalized by the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) have sat for the Senior School Certificate Examination, a development described by the service as part of its rehabilitation efforts.
Speaking at the end of the year briefing with newsmen Wednesday in Abuja, Comptroller General of NCS, Ja’afaru Ahmed, said the refusal by some state governors to sign death penalty sentence of the condemned inmates as one of the factors contributing to congestion in Correctional facilities.
The NCS boss, who was represented by his spokesman, Francis Enobore, said the Administration of Criminal Justice Act is to hasten the trial of suspects so that Correctional facilities could be decongested.
“Governors are not willing to sign death sentences of condemned inmates, neither are they ready to commute their death sentence to life imprisonment.”
The CG said not more than 24 states have domesticated the Act, adding thag the Act will help decongest facilities, “as some of its provisions empowers Correctional centres to reject inmates so that facilities are not overcrowded.”
The spokesman said the service has developed the Correction Information Management System (CIMS) to capture inmates biometric, access the length of remand and pre-trial detention proceedings in the correction system.
He said the CIMS project has already taken off in some locations across the country.
Enobore who doubles as Controller of Corrections added that a re-assessment of utility services in NCoS facilities nationwide was currently ongoing in order to device possible ways of coping with the phenomenal overcrowding in the system and avoid recurrence.
He said that the generous attention of the present administration to the NCoS, coupled with the doggedness of his boss, provided a recipe for fundamental changes in offenders’ management.
This he said, is evidenced in the reinvigorated reformation and rehabilitation programmes in custodial centres across the country, part of which is the multi-million naira bakery and confectionery unit established in three locations in 2019.
“We have equally attempted to address the age-long infrastructural deficit through construction and rehabilitation of inmates’ cells including the provision of beds and beddings to enhance humane custody.
“Of significant mention is the 3,000 capacity ultra-modern custodial centres approved for all the geo-political zones, with that of the North West in Kano at the verge of completion, and that of North Central in Abuja, and Bori in Rivers State just commenced.
“A total of 32 satellite custodial centres shut down by the Boko Haram insurgency have also been re-opened, ” he said.
He however, said that in order to improve access to justice for pre-trial detainees, a total of 382 operational vehicles have been procured and distributed between 2016 and 2018, for inmates to be taken to court for hearing as and when due.
Enobore who said that NCoS had not left out the issue of welfare for its staff, revealed that since the appointment of Ja’afaru Ahmed as Controller General (CG), over 25,000 officers and men of the service have been promoted, some of which were stagnated for up to 15 years.
“May I use this opportunity to formally inform you that funds have been released by the Federal Government (FG) to pay the promotion arrears of personnel.
“For those who were promoted in 2013 and 2014 and accordingly, payment has been effected to all beneficiaries including retired staff members,” he said.