Alex Enumah in Abuja
The federal government yesterday said it is high time Nigerians rose to the challenge of drugs and other social vices that are fast destroying the youths by helping to formulate strategy, legal framework as well as infrastructure that would help rehabilitate and reintegrate victims of drugs and other social vices in the country.
Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), who lamented the plight of drugs addicts in various illegal detention centres across the country, invited members of the public to come by way of legal framework and policy that would assist the government address the issue.
Similarly, Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Justice Ishaq Bello, who described Illegal detention centres for drug addicts as a “Child of necessity”, disclosed that the FCT has already commence move to establish standard rehabilitation centres that would see to the needs of drug addicts and other social misfits in the FCT.
According to him parents were compelled to send their wards with drug issues to such illegal detention centres because of the absence of standard rehabilitation centres in the country.
Malami and Bello spoke yesterday at a press briefing on the proposed workshop on: Effective Implementation of the Correctional Service Act, recently signed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“If there have been states’ institutional arrangement system, parents will not hand over their children to such centres”, he said, parents are compelled to do that because of lack of standard rehabilitation centres”.
Speaking on the achievements of the federal government in the area of prison de-congestion, Malami disclosed that no less than 3, 768 inmates in 34 prisons across 16 states of the federation have been set free.
“The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in October 2017, constituted a Presidential Committee on Prisons Reform and Decongestion Chaired by the Honourable Chief Judge, High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Honourable Justice I.U Bello to fast-track the Decongestion of prisons.
“The Committee has since its inauguration visited and appraised about 34 prisons in sixteen (16) states. A total number of Three Thousand, Seven Hundred and Sixty-Eight (3,768), have been so far released during these visits via payment of fines for convicts for minor offences with the option of fine who are unable to pay the fines, general review of peculiar cases and advocacy overtures to relevant authorities”, he said.
The AGF in addition said that the Committee also wrote letters of appeal to several State Government Executives to act on some special cases encountered during the visits to various prisons in some states on the need to exercise their powers of clemency in deserving cases or commute to life sentence those condemned to death.
Malami noted that in line with the vision of transforming the prisons into correctional centers, a standard Skill Acquisition Centre at Keffi Correctional Centre will be established in December which will be replicated in Correctional Centres across the Federation.
“This will enhance the focus on corrections and promotion of reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders as provided by the Act.
“It is on this note, that my office in collaboration with the Presidential Committee on Prisons Reform and Decongestion of Prisons and the Nigerian Correctional Service will be hosting a three-day Strategic Workshop in the Month of November, 2019, with the theme, “Towards Effective Implementation of the Correctional Service Act, 2019”.
According to Malami, the purpose of the National Workshop is to sensitise stakeholders especially Justice Sector Institutions on the provisions of the Act particularly the provisions regarding non-custodial services which is newly introduced.
He added that the Workshop will provide a veritable platform for the overview and comparative analysis of Correctional Service Act, 2019.
