Community Urges Prisons Service To Revive Reformatory

The Ngwo community in Enugu State has urged the Nigeria Prisons Service to revive the abandoned reformatory located in the area.

The traditional ruler of the community, Igwe Innocent Ayalogu, said in Enugu  yesterday that the reformatory was abandoned during the Nigeria civil war.

 The Esaa of Ngwo Asaa, Ayalogu, said that already “some unscrupulous elements” had encroached on the land which was acquired by the service in 1933.

The traditional ruler noted that the reformatory had served as a corrective home for delinquent children even after the prisons service left it for the state government to manage.

Reports say that the state Command of the prisons service had since indicated interest to re-possess the facility to build a borstal to carter for under-aged children involved in crime.

A visit to the facility showed that residential quarters for workers of the reformatory had been taken over by staff of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.

Similarly, the classrooms used by the then inmates have also been taken over by a mission school.

The Controller of Prisons in the state, Mr Chris Ntewo, said the command had already sent a report to its national headquarters and was awaiting response.

Ntewo said the prisons authority had borstals in Kaduna and Abeokuta but none in the South-East and South-South regions.

He lamented that young people involved in criminal activities in the area had to be remanded in prison custody with hardened criminals due to absence of borstals to cater for them.