Prison inmates
The Lagos State Prisons Command has graduated 29 inmates under its “ONESIMUS Project” designed to teach them life skills preparatory to their release and eventual re-integration into the society.
The “ONESIMUS Project” is under the Kiriki Medium Prisons, Lagos, which held its joint 7th Graduation and 8th Matriculation Ceremony on Wednesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme has the Covenant University and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria as collaborators.
Other collaborators are the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS).
The Project’s Coordinator, Dr Nasiru Sule-Bamigbola of the Prison Fellowship Nigeria (PFN), said the essence of the project was to give hope to the inmates.
“Today, the actual figure of the current graduating students is 29, comprising of 16 females and 13 males.
“Last year, we graduated 44 inmates, comprising 22 male and 22 female inmates drawn from the medium and the female facilities.
“We are equally seizing the opportunity to matriculate about 36 inmates, comprising 24 males and 12 females for the same programme.
“Since inception of the programme in 2009, we have graduated 170 inmates and the whole thing has been fantastic.
“While undergoing the programme, they are taken through a number of hands-on training as well as conventional educations.
“We teach them such things as textile making, soap, perfume, insecticide, Disinfectant manufacturing as well as cake making, decoration of halls for events and ICT,’’ he said.
According to him, these projects help to get the inmates focused as well as rehabilitate them.
He added that with this sort of empowerment, it had helped to tackle the issue of resistivity as hardly did any inmate that had gone through the programme, certificated and discharged have cause to return to crime.
He said that most of the inmates that attended the programme were basically those awaiting trial and those whose terms were about to be concluded.
Sule-Bamigbola said that the inmates when eventually freed, were also monitored and mentored to ensure that they started with the various skills they had acquired before being allowed to re-integrate into the larger society.
He said the mentoring role which had more to do with their psyche was being handled by the Covenant University.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Justice, Olufunmilayo Atilade, said corruption was the bane of development in Nigeria, eroding public resources and denying the citizens their rights to basic necessities of life.
Atilade, represented by a Magistrate, Ademola Adesanya, said this while delivering a keynote address on the topic: “Accountable Institutions and Leadership-Impetus for Socio-Economic Participation, Peace and Progress’’.
According to her, transparency and accountability are inter-related principles, which if adopted by relevant government authorities and other agencies will assist in the reduction of corruption and promote development.
“To this end, government policies and practices must not infringe on the rights of the people to basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, education and healthcare services.
“Government must also consult and work closely with citizens and other stakeholders as well as the civil society, including NGOs that have the experience in addressing corruption.
“Citizens should be encouraged and supported to approach and lodge complaints before anti-corruption bodies and ensure that witnesses are protected from intimidation and reprisal attacks.
“Standardised administrative procedures should be developed by all local government administrations.
“This will help to check corruption at the local level but the citizens must be well informed about such procedures and law to benefit from them.
“A computerised data system for storing administrative data, including tax registration, should be established in all local government administrations,” she said.
The Controller of Prisons, Lagos Command, Timothy Tinuoye, lauded the organisers of the programme, adding that it had helped in facilitating the rehabilitation of the inmates.
He also called on the Federal Government to seek a means of replicating such programmes in other facilities as the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).
Tinuoye, however, frowned at the at the justice system in the handling of the “awaiting trial’’ inmates.
He said the process was too slow and called for a system in place that would ensure speedy dispensation of justice to decongest the prisons.
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