The Federal Government has reiterated its commitment to restructuring all Custodial Centres across the country, aimed at enhancing national security.
This was made known during an inspection visit by the Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to the Maximum Security Custodial Centre in Karshi and both the New and Old Medium Security Custodial Centres in Keffi.
While addressing newsmen in Keffi, Dr. Tunji-Ojo expressed satisfaction with the progress of the ongoing works at the custodial centres.
“We are making progress and we are happy at the progress we have made,” he stated.
The minister emphasized the need to relocate the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Keffi due to urbanization and the increasing inmate population.
He said, “You can see what I said about urbanization, you can see houses sharing fences with the Keffi Custodial Centres, it means it is not sustainable. We have to think about the location because of the effect of urbanization. We are taking the right steps and we appreciate the President for his concern. He is putting everything in place to ensure we have sustainable Custodial Centres across the country.”
The Minister assured that measures have been implemented to prevent a recurrence of the Suleja incident, and expressed confidence that such unfortunate incident will not happen again.
“The name has changed from prisons to correctional services; and that has to do with ideology, from incarceration to a place of transformation, to a place of reformation, and a place of correction,” he noted.
Dr. Tunji-Ojo had visited the Maximum Security Centre in Karshi to review the progress of the 3,000 capacity facility.
He assured Nigerians that the government will not rest until a complete transformation in the correctional service is achieved.
“We will not rest until there is a complete transformation in the correctional service in Nigeria,” he declared.
The Minister was accompanied on his visits by the Controller General of the Nigeria Correctional Service, Haliru Nababa, and other top management staff of the ministry.