Jailbreaks: Reps panel chief decry infrastructural decay of correctional centers

The Chairman of the House of Representatives committee on Reformatory Institution, Mr Chinedu Ogah has decried the state of disrepair of correctional centres in the country.

Ogah called on the 36 states of the Federation to build modern correctional services in order to forestall incessant jailbreaks in the country.

He spoke when he led members of the committee to inspect the Suleja prison whose damage by a heavy rainfall led to the escape of scores of inmates recently.

Ogah argued that states are free to establish Correctional centres since they are now in the concurrent list of The 1999 Constitution, as amended,

Acknowledging that the little token used to feed inmates is not enough, he said it’s unfortunate that not much have been done to address the infrastructure decay in the correctional service established in 1914.

Ogah said that the budget of the correction service could not be enough to do what is needed, adding that they needed more money to take care of the security of the service.

He said it was unexplainable that a little above 400 were being taken care of by just five armed men, adding that such an arrangement would not work.

“They need more manpower; we are urging Mr. President to approve the recruitment of more manpower to the correction service by recruiting more men to man the correction service.

He said such a move would help to stabilize the correctional service, adding that it would further help to checkmate any attack on the correct correctional facilities.

“The people that are recruited are going to be on the field to do their job, and such a thing will help; there would not be any other jailbreak.

“The correctional service needs more vehicles; the staff of the correctional service are supposed to live in the barracks; they are supposed to live near them so that a lot of this incident can be taken care of.”