The Custodial Centres of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), have 16,000 inmates above her carrying capacity, a situation that has fuelled aggression among the inmates and overstretched the system.
At the moment, the Custodial Centres of the Nigerian Correctional Service have a combined carrying capacity of 58,278 inmates in the country.
Haliru Nababa, the Controller-General of Corrections (CGC), while speaking at the Second Controller-General of Corrections’ Retreat holding in Sokoto, opined that the retreat aimed to draw and outline a five-year direction for the service in line with the Ministerial retreat held in Ilorin.
According to him, the NCoS maintains 244 facilities, including 20 farm centres, 10 cottage industries, one open camp and 4 training institutions across the country.
He explained that the current capacity of Nigerian Custodial Centres stands at 58,278 as against the population of over 75, 000 inmates, saying that in recent times, the Nigerian Custodial Centres have experienced incessant attacks which were externally organized and executed.
He observed that over 14,101 inmates have acquired proficiency certificates in various probations, while over 3,730 inmates have received start-up tools under the NCoS Aftercare Support Programme.
He assured that the Nigerian Custodial Centres remained Covid–19 protocols compliant, and have not recorded any case so far.