States to now accommodate, feed their prison inmates, Nigerian govt declares

The Federal Government, on Thursday, said states in the country will now shoulder the responsibility of accommodating and feeding prison inmates convicted for state offences.

The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, who said this while speaking at a 2-day High-Level Conference on Decongestion and Corrections Management, on Thursday in Abuja, noted that this followed the recent constitutional amendment which placed Correctional Services on the concurrent list.

“This simply means that states are now empowered to establish their own Correctional Services and facilities.

“States which do not have correctional facilities would have to pay the Federal Government for the feeding and accommodation of their inmates,” the minister said.

Aregbesola further stated that the new development was a huge relief to the Federal Government which used to shoulder the burden of accommodating and feeding inmates.

The minister, who lamented that the huge amount was draining the coffers of the Federal Government, said further: “These facilities are being run by the Federal Government. It should be noted that the criminal justice system of Nigeria makes provision for state and federal offences.

“However, until the amendment of the Constitution, only the Federal Government was in charge of custodial centres.

“With the amendment of the Constitution, states are now empowered to build correctional centres and facilities to house offenders who are convicted and sentenced for committing state offences.

Read also: Aregbesola seeks states’ cooperation to tackle prisons congestion

“Where states are unable to build custodial centres, it is believed that they can suggest ways to collaborate with the Federal Government in feeding and housing these state offenders.’’

The minister, while noting that the conference had brought to the fore applicable laws to aid the reform of correctional services, including custodial and non-custodial measures, said that Section 12 (4-12) of the NCoS Act, gave the Service the powers to reject inmates when custodial centres are full.

“By the provision of the Act, the Controller-General, NCoS, is mandated to inform the head of the judiciary of when the custodial centres have exceeded their capacity.

“This is necessary, so that more offenders are not sent to the centres to serve their sentence. Where his information is not heeded, he is mandated to reject new inmates.

“It is hoped that the above measure will curb the dumping tendencies leading to overcrowding of the custodial centres.

“This will be by encouraging the payment of fines for simple offences, non-custodial sentencing and also building and construction of new correctional facilities,’’ the minister said.

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