The Nigerian Correctional Service NCoS announced that currently, 3,341 males and 72 females await execution, while 1,293 males and 15 females are serving life sentences. Additionally, there are 18,935 males and 357 females serving various convictions.
The Controller General, Haliru Nababa, shared these statistics at a press conference in Abuja, also mentioning that 1,840 individuals took the 2023 Senior School Certificate Examinations, as relayed by the Service’s Public Relations Officer, AC Abubakar Umar.
He said; “This year also, we are able to improve on the treatment regime for inmates in the areas of reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration. Suffice it to mention that a total of 1,840 inmates sat for the 2023 NECO/SSCE, while many others are undergoing various academic programmes in Custodial Centres nationwide. As you are aware, our partnership with the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) is yielding pragmatic results as many inmates are undergoing various degree programmes, including doctorate degrees, in custody.
“In terms of staff welfare, we are committed towards improving the wellbeing of personnel as they are invaluable in achieving Service mandates. In addition to providing more barracks and office accommodation, we succeeded in the massive promotion of staff this year. In 2023 alone, we were able to promote more than 20,000 officers and men. Only yesterday, we decorated a total of 5,014 personnel who were recently promoted, in addition to the 17,693 who were elevated earlier in the year. In the area of cushioning the hardship faced by staff arising from the fuel subsidy removal, we rolled out several palliative measures among which is the provision of mass transit buses to convey staff residing in faraway areas to and from work at no cost.
“With the initiative and support of the Honourable Minister for Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, we were able to trim down the numbers in our custody following the release of 4,086 inmates who had options of fine and/or compensation. This is in addition to other measures such as construction of new custodial facilities in the six (6) geopolitical zones of Nigeria, strengthening the non-custodial alternative, provision of adequate logistics for court duties, and other initiatives towards decongesting custodial facilities.
“On Non-custodial, a lot of States have keyed into this. During COVID-19 lockdown, those who flouted the law were given non-custodial sentences, mostly community service. The non-custodial sentencing has come to stay because those who have no reason to be on our facilities could still be punished but without necessarily adding them to already congested facilities”, he added.
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