24th April, 2023
By Alex Enebeli
The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has reactivated the abandoned Borstal Training Institute (BTI) in Enugu, for the reformation of juvenile offenders in the South-East and South-South Geopolitical zones.
Mrs Elizabeth Ezenwanne, the Controller of Corrections and Principal of BTI, disclosed this on Monday in Enugu.
She said the BTI would also admit troublesome juveniles who posed problems to their parents/society for reformation after their warrants must have been perfected by a court of competent jurisdiction.
She stated that the programme was being rendered at a zero-cost three-year maximum training period.
However, the controller said that the centre was yet to take off due to a lack of some vital facilities.
Ezenwanne appealed to well-meaning Nigerians, NGOs, corporate organisations, civil society organisations and philanthropists to assist in the effective take-off of the school in a record time.
Ezenwanne said the institute was meant for training those between the ages of 16 and 21, who committed crimes, and were tried and convicted.
According to her, taking juvenile offenders to adult conventional custodial centres, where hardened criminals are also harboured, is not good for them.
“BTI was created to expose them to education and vocation for those that want to acquire skills.
“When we join them with adult criminals, they will come out worst persons to the society, so to avoid such, the institute came to be,” she said.
She also said that the activities of the school, established in 1932 by the colonial administration, were interrupted and abandoned due to the Nigeria Civil War in 1967.
She added that although the Enugu Custodial Centre was also affected by the war, it later bounced back, but the institute never did until NCoS Act, 2019 made it mandatory for every state in Nigeria to have separate male and female BTI.
“On this note, our amiable Controller-General of Corrections, Alhaji Haliru Nababa, deemed it fit to bring back the school to life by putting up some facilities.
“Our handicap now is non-availability of water supply, electricity, the existence of dilapidated staff and principal quarters, absence of buildings for Chapel/Mosque and clinic.
“Some parents who heard about the school when I featured on a radio programme have been coming here to have their stubborn children admitted. But accepting them where there is no water to take care of their personal hygiene is unfair.
“I have reached out to Nigerians asking for help to enable me to run this school and I am still pleading as Federal Government cannot do everything alone,” Ezenwanne said.
She stressed that the school was the only one in the South-East and South-South part of Nigeria, adding that philanthropists from the region should come to their aid to make the institute viable.
“The training school is not like other correctional centres. It is more of an institute to make the children feel at home as we do not go much in uniforms but in civilian dresses.
“My greatest regret will be that I retire from service without this school starting in earnest as I have determined.
“If God helps 90 per cent of children coming here will be totally refined and transformed for us to have a better society,” she said.
NAN