NGO Faults Ban On Visits By Charity Groups To Correctional Centres

By Ayodele Oni

A non-Governmental Organization, (NGO) has called for a reversal, of an order banning religious groups and other charity organizations from paying visits to Correctional Centres nationwide.

The One Love Family and Caring Association, known as One Love Foundation, in a letter to the Comptroller-General of Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) Mr Haliru Nababa, noted that such ban would have negative effect on the lives of inmates that are not being adequately taken care of.

The letter signed by its President, Chief Patrick Eholor, stated that “as part of our social work schedule for the year 2022, we are undertaking a convict rehabilitation programme called Second Chance.

“For this programme, our foundation drew up a curriculum of prison visitations by social work counsellors, pastors and imams who are partners with our foundation for the purpose of moral reorientation, preaching instructions and skills acquisition training for correctional centre inmates across Nigeria.

“Accordingly, we communicated our said programme to various state controllers of your correctional services.

“Sir, to our dismay, we were informed by state commands of your service that an administrative memo originating from the office of the Comptroller-General prohibits every form of charity activity, including the various aspects of our Second Chance philanthropic programme, except the operators of such activity obtained the written authorization of the Comptroller-General.

“This hard-to-comprehend restriction against constitutional and religious acts of charity, which both the major faiths of Christianity and Islam command, have grievously disrupted our foundation’s humanitarian support programmes for inmates in the past and in the present, as well as other NGOs’ charity support for innates across the country.

“We of One Love Foundation and our civil society partners hereby respectfully seek an interactive meeting of civil society groups and NGOs with the office of the Comptroller-General for enlightenment as a public institution established to serve the best interest of correctional service reforms and inmates’ well-being in Nigeria.

“The laws and orders blocking charity for prisoners are very dangerous and tantamount to totalitarianism.

“What are our lawyers doing, what are the Senior Advocates doing, what is Yemi Osibanjo doing with all these injustice?

“How can the centre have so much power that if you have to do anything meaningful in this country, you have to come to Abuja?

“We are now asking questions, and we must get answers, using the Freedom of Information Act.

“We want to know the annual budget of the prisons, because we understand the prisoners are not being fed or cared for, they don’t get their emoluments.

“They don’t get trade work or schooling, the system is rotten. We will keep fighting until these things are corrected.”

It is not likely the protest will have any impact. The ban is a consequence of the many bloody invasion of  Correctional Centres across the country by hoodlums, causing mayhem, and the releasing inmates. On a couple of occasions, Prison Warders and other Security Agents had either been killed or seriously injured.

Government is, therefore, tightening all loopholes.