Gov Imoke Calls For Urgent Prison Reforms

Senator Liyel Imoke, the Cross River State governor, has emphasised the need for comprehensive and urgent prison reforms without which effort to combat the rising crime rate will remain a mirage.

Governor Imoke who mads the call in Calabar on Monday while handing out skill acquisition materials to inmates of prisons in Calabar, said the sentencing policy should also be reviewed.

“The need for prison reform cannot be too accentuated; if there is one sector where reforms are imperative and need very urgent attention in Nigeria today, that sector is the prison service,” he said.

Imoke who was represented by his State Security Adviser, Mr Rekpene Bassey, said the upward surge in crime in Nigeria today is rather depressing which is due largely to the lack of political will to enforce a deliberate solution to the lack of infrastructure and other needs of the prisons by the relevant authorities.

“Except we have a prison reform, reduction of crime including its decrease by deterrence would be extremely difficult,” Imoke said

He also called for improved funding for the Nigerian Prisons, saying the engagement of public and private partnership in the provision of services would go along way in improving the acute lack of infrastructure as well as replace derelict ones.

“I dare say at the risk of emphasis that it has become expedient to engage public and private partnership in the provision of prison services.”

Mr Hakeem Dele, the Controller of Prisons in the state said the problem of rehabilitation and reintegration which has always been blamed on lack of tools for inmates’ training has been addressed with the provision of the skill acquisition items.

He said the items being provided by Imoke for the inmates include soap making machines, carpentry tools, barbing equipment, and tailoring machines.

Mr Dele advised the benefitting inmates not to sell the items but use them to better their lot in order to be effectively reintegrated into the society.
By Emma Una/Calabar