Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba
Moro met recently with some media organizations during which he explained his
ministry’s efforts to give the prisons a turn-around. The former academic who
also spoke on politics in his home-state and what he described as vicious
campaigns against him, revealed that 34,000 of the 42,000 inmates in Nigerian
prisons, are awaiting trial and a good percentage of them have been
incarcerated for at least five years.
Excerpts.
My focus in the ministry
It has not been easy managing the
ministry, I must tell you. You know a federal ministry has high obligation and
it takes skill to handle. In a situation where one manages not just the
ministry but also agencies under it, one faces a different task altogether.
In my ministry for instance, you
coordinate the Prisons, Immigration, the Civil Defence and some others and it
is not always easy.
But with my background in public
service as a lecturer and administrator for years, and holding political
office, there is some advantage because one already had ideas of what one wants
and how to make the sector better and functional.
We have been working in line with the
president’s transformation agenda to ensure that the ministry is
repositioned. We started with the update and enhancement of the human resource
base. There is an acceptable standard to which workers must adapt; so we have
embarked on training and improvement of workers because they have to be
equipped to give their best. Public service has changed over the years and we
can’t be left behind as part of a world that targets progress.
In Immigration, we saw it compelling
and vital to introduce the e-passport that is the trend all over the world. The
introduction made it easier to obtain passports without the stress people went
through in the past.
Another area of utmost concern has been
the prison. Our prisons are not worth the name. Everybody talks of the need to
decongest the prisons but not much had been achieved. So we made it a duty to
embark on real decongestion and also the improvement of the facilities.
Prisoners now learn trades and skills
so that when they leave the prisons, they will be fully and gainfully
reintegrated into the society as better citizens. I have a wear I bought at the
Onitsha Prisons that was sewn by a prisoner. It is so well designed that
anybody will happily buy it. That is the type of society we want to achieve;
where even ex-convicts and prisoners would be contributors to the economy and
empowered.
Congestion in prisons
The congestion still remains a big
headache. There are 42,000 inmates in Nigerian prisons, and 34,000 of them are
awaiting trial inmates (ATI). To solve this problem would mean a total overhaul
and re-planning of the criminal justice administration system. I must state
that the job of decongesting the prisons vested in the Justice Ministry has not
been really effective.
Need to re-jig criminal justice system
There should be a redesigning to
involve the prisons and the supervising ministry and the police and civil society
organisations.
All over the nation, I can say that
every day, an average of 1000 more Nigerians are dumped in various prisons and
remain there without trial. There are those that have been there for about
three years or more without being taken to court for once.
That is not the way to manage a
society. Some of them have been in detention for much longer than the
sentence they would have got on conviction, and I can tell you that the law
enforcement system has not helped matters.
How fair is it that the police would
arrest people, dump them in prisons without an effort to prosecute them, and
how can we heal the system with such a practice? It is almost impossible.
Special court for decongestion
I think we really need a special court
to handle decongestion of prisons.
Last week, I got a report that the
Lagos State task force in liaison with the police arrested 55 women said to be
prostitutes and dumped them in Ikoyi Prisons. Notwithstanding that the prisons
is federal establishment, states in the enforcement of their laws send arrested
persons there and abandon them without prosecution or contributing to their
upkeep.
So we are right now working on
integrated reforms with allied bodies and agencies to make sure the congestion
is tackled, and that a post-prison term plan is made ready for inmates.
Government didn’t ask Britain to build prisons
I want to point out that Nigeria never
solicited the aid of Britain to build a prison here. What the government of
Britain does in that direction is just part of its foreign aid agenda. I think
their concern is the number of Nigerians in their prisons. There are 400
Nigerians in UK prisons and just one Briton in Nigerian prison. So, since they
felt these Nigerian prisoners could be sent back home to serve their term and
with the knowledge that the nation’s prisons didn’t meet the UN humanitarian
standard, they decided to take that step.
Nigerians in foreign prisons
I have to be frank with you that the
exact number is not specific. You know it is not a stable factor because almost
everyday, people are sentenced and put in jail in one country or the other and
you need not be told that Nigerians live almost in every country of the world
in large numbers.
Repatriation of Nigerian prisoners
That is a good idea, but the Prisons
Act that is in force does not compel a prisoner to accept transfer. So, coming
back to serve is purely voluntary.
However, we are seriously working on
conclusion of plans to build six model prisons in all the geo-political zones
that would meet world standard as the first step to give human face to our
prison system. After the first six, the rest would be upgraded and made better
in addition to what we have been doing so far.
Ibori not coming to serve term in Nigeria
Not at all. He did not apply for such
transfer. That much I know.
Employment racket in agencies under me
I am fully aware. It will be a big lie
to say I didn’t know of it. I get information of such things especially the
Civil Defence. I know so many people parade themselves as employment and
recruitment agencies. I have specific examples of people who were caught in the
past and are facing prosecution. There is a particular one that impersonated
the First Lady and purported to operate as recruitment agent for the Civil
Defence. We set a trap for her and she was apprehended and handed over the
police. I am sure she is facing trial.
There is another case where somebody
defrauded people with the promise of securing them jobs. We are working to trap
the person. It got so bad that last week, I directed the Permanent Secretary of
the ministry to initiate a process of automation of all job openings in the
ministry and agencies under it. The automation will make it impossible for any
fraudster to manipulate because when there is job opening, it will be on the
website and whoever doesn’t apply through that platform will automatically know
he or she is dealing with fakes and scammers.
Alleged indictment for gun running
Yes, I am fully aware. I read it and I
heard also that the State Security Service (SSS) and the office of the National
Security Adviser (NSA) wrote Mr President on that. But as we speak, I have not
been summoned by either Mr President, the SSS or the NSA.
Let me give you the history of the
allegation. It is actually not new. It is an old fad that is revived whenever
the authors feel they have need for it. That need is politics.
Local government election will soon
hold in my state and they have the need to revive their old calumny.
Why they are after me
The issue is that my political profile
is rising steadily, and I think that is God’s doing. Why our people have
refused to embrace the politics of persuasion rather than coercion is what
still baffles me. They say I have plans to replace the Senate President in
2015. And I ask, is it automatic that if I become a senator, I must also become
the senate president?
They should also tell me if I am God
that plans, executes and manages tomorrow.
Yes, we are politicians and we have
dreams, but I have never played the politics of desperation.
Some others say I am planning to become
governor in 2015, and when I hear all these, I laugh, and that makes them
desperate to undo me at all costs.
In 2005, the same allegations were
trumped up against me and I faced trial at a High Court in Abuja. In 2008, I
was discharged and acquitted of the charges. The records are there; yet these
people can’t let me be.
I have never been a harbinger of
violence all my life. In my days in the University of Lagos till graduation in
the 1980s, I was a unionist, and pursued persuasion. After my days working in
the National Assembly during the second republic, I did my Masters degree
course in Unilag and another Masters degree course in the University of
Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).
I lectured in the Benue State
Polytechnic for 14 years and it is on record that while there, Tiv and Idoma
students had a violent confrontation, and I was the only staffer, academic and
non-academic, that intervened and helped to initiate their reconciliation. I
have never been a businessman before or imported anything – knife, soap or
meat, not to talk of guns.
How and when, all of a sudden, I turned
violent and became a gun dealer is what the accusers need to explain to the
world. I have a home here in Abuja, and the security agencies know where it is.
I have another in Makurdi and a little country-home in my town. None of them is
hidden.
I call on the SSS, police or any organ
to search all of them and fetch the guns they said I kept there. Or let them
confront me with the person or persons who said that I bought guns and armed
them against anybody.
It became so funny that even the arms
supplied to the Civil Defence recently, which I commissioned as the supervising
minister, was linked to me.
They said that I diverted the guns, and
God knows that after the guns were received at the handover, I never knew or
asked where they were taken because that is not my duty. It is the Civil
Defence that has that to handle. So all these are just politics of people who
lack the capacity to persuade the electorate, and I just laugh at them because
I hold on to my God, and I will continue to do that.
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