The Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, has blamed prison congestion in the country on the inability of the Nigeria Police to properly investigate cases before charging them to court.
The Minister bared his mind in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, on Monday during his tour of Abakaliki Prison as part of his official visit to the State.
Dambazau observed that improper investigation of cases by the Police hampers speedy dispensation of justice, thereby congesting the prisons with scores of awaiting trial inmates.
Dambazau noted that that the key functions of the Nigeria Prison Service was to safeguard and reform inmates, ensure their welfare as well as rehabilitate the prisons and the prisoners, adding that decongesting the prisons demands collaborative action between the police and the courts.
The Minister emphasized that for Nigeria to meet the United Nation’s minimum standard of rehabilitation of prisoners, it must squarely deal with the problems of congestion, capacity building as well as welfare of prisoners and prison officers, adding: “It does not make sense when you send one to prison and he returns worse than he came.
“We need to get to the UN minimum standard of rehabilitation of prisoners, but the two most important things to do: one of those things is to make sure the prisons are decongested because 70 per cent of inmates in Nigeria prisons are awaiting trials.
“We need to deal with that issue but this cannot be done by the Nigeria Prisons Service.
“Nigeria prisons are just a warehouse for inmates who are either convicted or awaiting trial.
“If a warrant is given to them, they cannot reject it.
“So, they have to keep the inmates.
“To deal with decongestion, we have to work with the police and the law court.
“The police must have to properly investigate before charging a matter to court.
“Otherwise, if you charge a matter to court without it being properly investigated, it certainly hampers speedy dispensation of justice and the law court will have to deal with unnecessary adjournment.”
The Interior Minister, who observed that the issue of capacity building has been a lingering problem in the Nigeria Prison Service, noted that the Federal Government has adopted a deliberate policy of personnel training and merit-based promotions as a means of enhancing motivation, fairness and justice within its ranks.
Dambazau said: “As a matter of policy now, we have said nobody can be promoted from one rank to another without certain requirements.
“What you find is that we have two groups of persons who form the majority of the service: “One group, you find somebody within one, two to three years, they get promotions up to three times without working for it and you have another group who stay for 10 to 15 years without promotion.
“And you will find out that both groups don’t have motivation.
“The first group will say: after all, I can be promoted any time, why do I need to work?
“And the other group will say: I have been there, no promotion, why do I need to work?
“But now, we want to remove that so that merit will determine who gets promotion.
“These are some of the reforms we are doing in the Nigeria Prison Service.
“So, we need cooperation and support from the state government.
“After all, if we check the prison, you will find out that the majority of the inmates are Ebonyians and If you go to Kano, you will find out that the majority of the prisoners there are from Kano.”
Meanwhile, the Interior Minister has appreciated the Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, on behalf of the Federal Government for the huge resources the State has invested in constructing an ultra-modern prison facility for the Nigeria Prisons in Abakaliki.
Describing the ongoing edifice as a great support from Umahi, Dambazau noted that the action of the Governor was worthy of emulation going by the fact that the prison inmates were our brothers and sisters needing our collective contributions.
He said: “I will even ask the Comptroller General to write letter of appreciation if he has not done that, to Ebonyi State Government.”
Recall that resulting from the attempted jail break by inmates of the Abakaliki Prison in 2015 and Umahi’s displeasure with the obsolete and deplorable condition of facilities in the prison, the Governor had pledged to build a new complex for the service in Abakaliki.
The Minister, during the visit, inspected the project which has reached about 70 per cent completion.
– Oswald Agwu