Implementation of the newly-enacted Nigeria Correctional Service, NCS, act will begin in the next one month even though the needed approval is still being expected from the minister.
Comptroller General of the Service, Ja’afaru Ahmed, made the disclosure Thursday in Abuja, during a press briefing organised to sensitise officers and members of the public on the highpoints of the act, which came into effect on July 31, 2019.
According to Ahmed, though the new act had enormous financial implication, a committee set up on how to ensure smooth implementation, has since submitted its report.
He, however, noted that an approval from the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, will be required for implementation to commence.
He listed areas of implementation to include: training programmes for personnel, standing order for the service, biometrics of inmates, redesignation among others.
“I assure you that,within the next one month,you will see tremendous changes in the Nigerian correctional service in terms of everything. I give you that assurance that you will see the changes and gradually, by the end of the year, we will have taken a full force because we have had interactions so far with development partners and within the next one or two weeks,we are going to hold a stakeholders’ conference of all stakeholders.
“I want the approval from the minister before I do that and I believe that very soon ,he will give us and we want to send it to him by next week so that the necessary things will be done..
“Very soon. As I speak with you, I have already identified the person that will change our signage,so that when you are passing to the airport or coming in to this place you will not see anything like Nigerian Prisons, you will see Nigerian correctional Service.
According to him, before the Act was signed, a committee had already been constituted to work out the modalities for strategic implementation of plan.
On why officials’ uniforms still carried “prisons” on their crest, the CG said he has already done a crest different from the ones worn by junior officers.
He went further to note that a committee was looking into the issues of changing the logo,crest,uniform.
Meanwhile, Ahmed has said that owing to demands that come with the new act, the service will need to train personnel, especially in the area of non-custodial measure.
This was as he noted further that with the new act, the Comptrollers were empowered to reject suspects that may be suffering insanity.
