By Frank Momodu
The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, on Tuesday, tasked the new Comptroller of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Mr. Haliru Nababa, on the unusual insecurity the country is currently grappling with.
He made the disclosure in Abuja, while decorating the new CG whom he said emerged from a rigorous meritocratic selection process devoid of interference from any quarters.
The Minister said, Nababa was recommended by the board to President Muhammadu Buhari who promptly nominated him for conferment by the Senate.
He said: “Having been screened by the Nigerian Senate and found worthy of this high responsibility, he was confirmed and he is receiving today the mantle of the job.
“Nababa is a gallant officer and a patriot. He has diligently served the country through the Nigerian Correctional Service for the past 31 years. His elevation is therefore well earned.”
Interestingly, he is mounting the saddle at a time of unusual security challenges, he added.
He admitted that insecurity is manifested in insurgency in the North East, banditry in the North West and parts of North Central, kidnappings in virtually all parts of the country, financial crimes and ritual killings in the South West, militancy that is assuming an insurrectional dimension in the South East and South South and sundry other criminal activities in all parts of the country.
He said: “The implication of this, is that the custodial facilities will be bursting at the seams with the influx of inmates awaiting trials or convicts serving terms and awaiting execution.
“This poses a special challenge in that some of the inmates belong to organisations that will deem themselves to be fighting an ethno-religious and political causes. Therefore, their members outsides will be planning to break into the facilities to free their members.
“There are also sophisticated criminal organisations whose members are either serving terms or awaiting trials and are now using the security situation in the country as an opportunity to attack our custodial centres and obtain their freedom.”
Whatever may be the motive, he acknowledged that the custodial centres have been under consistent attacks in a brazen challenge to the authority of the Nigerian state.
When inmates break free from custody, the security of lives and property is in jeopardy and bad things happen. This is the sociology of your emergence as the Controller General. It is a call to leadership, sacrifice, patriotism and selflessness, Aregbesola, added.
The Minister charged Nababa to lead the officers of the service to protect the integrity of its facilities, using all means necessary, adding the no one attacking our facilities should have the opportunity to regret his or her action.
He said: “Your predecessor left a big shoe for you to step into. Actually, no one steps into a higher office with his feet well fitted into the shoes.
“A higher office by definition means the shoes are bigger than your feet. You therefore have to grow your feet into the shoes, not compress the shoes into the size of your feet. It is in the steady and consistent growth of your feet that you match and surpass your predecessor and also leave a legacy and make name for yourself.
“It is my hope that you will take over from where he left and take the service to the next station.
The Ministry of Interior has received unprecedented attention from the present administration.
On funding, he warned the new CG, adding: “You will never have enough funds to do all you would have desired to do.”
“It is important that you keep in focus the core mandate of correction. The inmates must be kept healthy and safe from harm and from harming others. While a custodial centre may not necessarily be a five-star hotel accommodation, inmates must be reasonably fed and their health well taken care of.
“Their dignity should be well respected and they should be protected from abuse of any form – physical, sexual, verbal and psychological. They should leave the facilities on completion of their terms feeling well treated and their dignity as God’s creature restored. They should feel grateful for being handled by firm but kind and compassionate officers.
“They are expected to have been reformed and come out better persons.
“This is why you have to double down on the moral, academic and vocational training of the inmates. The goal of making the custodial centres enterprise centres should be mainstreamed now. The centres should be able to grow their own foods, build their own cells, be involved in construction and general enterprise.” The Minister said.
According to him, every inmate should be productive. No one should leave our facility without having imbibed the culture of wealth creation through creativity and hard work.
The Minister further stressed: “More than ever before, the Nigerian Correctional Service should increase collaboration with other security agencies, especially in intelligence gathering. The facilities are a lode mine of intelligence since they are the depositories of criminals.
“This can be well tapped to national advantage.
It is necessary to bolster discipline and professional integrity among the rank and file. An organisation is as strong and effective as the level of discipline within it.”
He acknowledged that there are a few bad eggs that smuggle prohibited items to inmates, assist them in running criminal operations while in custody, take them out to unapproved places and locations and wittingly or unwittingly facilitate jailbreak for them.
They should be fished out. Their nefarious activities endanger the nation, other staff and inmates. There should be no place for them. There should be zero tolerance for them in the service, he said.