Nayella George
Against the backdrop of another jail break, it is pertinent to note that Nigeria has found itself in this quagmire and may continue to experience such obnoxious developments due to corruption and the failure of the present administration to tackle certain national challenges headlong.
Key among these, is government’s failure to invest properly in capacity, the lack of in-depth vision to uphold the respective MDA’s mission, a shortfall of creative minds and innovative chief executives and inadequate commitment to the welfare of the staff/prisons officers as a result of greed and personal gains which have eaten so deep into the past and present chief executives.
The nation lacks eminent or true leadership among the heads of our MDAs who should dispassionately work for the common good of the country rather than acting to the detriment of the institutions they head.
One of the challenges of the Nigerian Prisons Service is the issue of prison congestion. It is, however, disheartening that some officers from the judiciary and the Nigerian Prisons hierarchy feed fat from the number of inmates in prisons hence will do everything possible to maintain or increase the number than attending to cases. This is because if the number is reduced they lose their fat “Ghana Must Go” which comes with the number of inmates being catered for by the authority and consequently reduces the amount of money up-for siphoning from the funds being allocated by the federal government for the welfare of these inmates.
There is a lot of rot in the Nigerian Prisons Service where most development strides are only being read on pages of newspapers but never come to fruition. In reality, the prisons hierarchy sabotages and frustrates any development which doesn’t meet their selfish or personal gains and could bring to the fore the service’s activities and that of its management or setting it on a global foothold for checks and balances.
An instance is the proposed E-Jail System (Electronic Jail Management System) where millions of naira has been expended yet nothing to show. Also is the purported Nigeria Prisons Agricultural Joint Venture Project which most Nigerians welcomed with so much enthusiasm and applauded the Minister of Interior and then Controller General of Prisons (CGP) with both officials never ceasing to talk-tall and boasting of the dividends of the agric project to the entire nation, the prisons staff and Nigerian inmates when fully operational. They made references to the South African Correctional Services which generates over $80 million annually from its agricultural/farming activities.
A commendable aspect of the proposed agric project is that it is aimed at rehabilitating and reforming inmates by engaging them in farming (mechanized) and building their capacity including that of prisons staff, thus reducing the risk or incidents of jail-break which has become the order of the day.
Another very gain of the proposed agric project was to provide inmates with monthly stipends as obtainable in the Western World; creating wealth by providing capital for start-up business at the end of the inmate’s jail term; increasing the welfare of prisons staff engaged in the project/farming activities. The project will also consolidate the present administration’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda and and increase revenue generation through the non-oil sector (economic diversification) while creating job opportunities for Nigerian youths with so much consideration currently given to the former ahead of the dwindling oil prices and decline in the demand of our crude oil in the international market.
Again, sad as this may sound is the fact that the last we heard of the agric project was at the inauguration of the steering committee to facilitate the development of the project and also during the Minister of Interior’s (Comrade Abba Moro) 2013 Mid-Term Report, where he told Nigerians that plans have been concluded to sign a Joint Venture Partnership Agreement with an indigenous company after a successful development process supervised by the project steering committee and as such operations would commence during the 2014 Planting Season; A common act or demonstration of Nigerian leaders where invisible projects achieved or yet to be achieved by them make the rounds “A True Case of 419 in Governance.”
Consequently, with the continuous jail break and recent prisons riot in the country it is imperative to ask the minister of interior and the acting CGP on the plans by the federal government to curb incident, given that the country would be saved of such embarrassment NOT by fairy-tale plans or beautiful policies which the country never lacks but by putting the right peg in the right hole. This can easily be achieved by enhancing the capacity of inmates through vocational, productive and industrial programmes with the proposed agricultural project serving as an index to build capacity, increase the welfare of inmates and above all, promote the federal government’s prisons reform. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop, is a sage that should swing the government into immediate action.
Oga Minister Abba Moro and CGP Suleiman Nigerians await your response to this clarion call Ooooh!!!
George wrote from Abuja
