Nigeria Prisoners Should Contribute To Development Through Farming @Prof Yemi Osinbajo

Recent interest of Prof . Yemi Osinbajo towards the state of Nigeria Prisoners  is a wonderful one.

In his statement,  has stressed the need “to decolonise 

Nigerian prisons.”

He described the nation’s prisons system 

as “a draconian colonial system  has 

not been helpful to Nigeria.

“It has no process of making productivity
out of the prisoners, or of creating
opportunity for reforming them,” Osinbajo
said.

He advocated a reformative process for
prisoners in order to create a better
society.

According to him, government’s efforts
must go beyond apprehending and
punishing offenders, adding that the efforts
must also ensure appropriate reformation
to make prisoners better persons when
they are released.

Osinbajo, represented by the Aso Rock
Chaplain, Seyi Joseph, said this in Abuja
during the National Prison Ministry
Conference and the Investiture of Patrons
of Nigeria Prison Fellowship, with the
theme, “Rebuilding loves and repairing the
harms of crimes.”

He commended the prison fellowship for
complementing the efforts of the government in reforming the lives of the prisoners, thereby creating a better society.

Osinbajo said, “The essence of government
policy and effort towards ensuring that prisoners are incarcerated has a lot of roles and a lot of things to show to the public because the public expect government to catch the offenders and punish the offenders.

“But we all know it should go beyond that,
by ensuring that there is a reformative process while they are in prison. Even though we are yet to attain that, efforts like that of the prison fellowship is complementing the effort of the
government.”

The VP emphasised that the laudable efforts of the faith-based organisation should be encouraged.

He urged them to look beyond the 26 prisons that the prison fellowship are currently working with and collaborate with other NGOs and other faith-based institutions in reforming prisoners.

Earlier, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Christians Pilgrims, Dr. Tor Uja, said there was need for the prison system and the criminal justice system to be restructured.

According to him, educational programme
of the country should be developed, adding
that the absence of educational opportunity was one of the major reasons for crime .

He said that judges need to be more proactive and people that have spent two years awaiting trial should be set free. 

Apart from his great ideas,  I feel these prisoners should engaged in farming.  You may call it a way of redeeming  themselves but I choose to believe is a way of making them be useful. 

At the end of the day it will make them  have reason to live and push forward in life.  We can even make it an entrepreneurship forum,  so that when they are out of the system,  they become happy for the prison experience .