The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) says 28,149 inmates were released nationwide in 2024 after the payment of fines and compensations.<\/p>\n
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Deputy Controller General, NCoS, Mr Ibrahim Idris, disclosed this during the third public hearing of the Independent Investigative Panel on Alleged Corruption and other Violations against the service in Abuja, yesterday.<\/p>\n
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Idris said; \u201clast year, 28,149 inmates were released as a result of payment of fines and compensations.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI also want to urge the panel and the public that payment of fine and compensation is a very charitable thing to do,\u201d<\/p>\n
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Idris, however, praised the role of charitable interventions in decongesting correctional facilities, adding that it had helped the Federal Government a lot.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBut when an individual wants to do it, he should follow the example of the Honourable Minister, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is when inmates were chosen, and the compensation, the fine were paid, and the inmates were even given repatriation money, \u201che added.<\/p>\n
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Idris maintained that the fewer the inmates in custody, the better the opportunity for proper rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
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This, he said was because even before the 2019 Act, the philosophy of NCoS had always been imprisonment as a punishment, and not for punishment.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhile it is pronounced, it is already punishment, whether the person comes to the correctional centre or not, it is already taken care of, \u201che said.<\/p>\n
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Also speaking, Assistant Controller General (ACG), Cyrus Lekatile, addressed the legal limitations on custodial centres in holding inmates without proper documentation, especially regarding compensation.<\/p>\n
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According to him, practically, the NCoS does not have the power to keep in custody any individual who doesn\u2019t have a valid document for remand.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAnd so, when an individual, who is sentenced with option of fine and compensation, that is, if the individual is unable to pay fine, it means naturally that he or she will serve the sentence,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
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Lekatile outlined the procedures followed at the expiration of an inmate\u2019s sentence where compensation remained unpaid.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOne, sometimes the warrants will come with compensation, and where the individual is unable to pay compensation before the end of the jail term, that compensation is converted into a jail term on the warrants.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAnd then, where that particular order is not given on the warrants, the officers report this matter before the court that has actually convicted this individual.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe judge or the magistrate will either convert the compensation to a jail term or order the release of this particular individual,\u201dhe said.<\/p>\n
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Lekatile highlighted an ongoing legislative amendment to the Nigerian Correctional Service Act, 2019, that would introduce a Victim Compensation Fund, backed by federal allocations.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe amendment, if adopted by the legislative arm of the government, seeks creation of a victim compensation trust fund to be funded from the federal allocation.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat matters is that the compensation to the victim will be paid from this trust fund without having anything to do with the inmates now who is unable to pay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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The NCoS ACG, however, added that inmates would still be required to perform tasks to support the fund.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe inmates will perform some other duties that will probably generate some money, no matter how little.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAnd then the money generated goes into the victim\u2019s trust fund,\u201d he emphasised.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) says 28,149 inmates were released nationwide in 2024 after the payment of fines and compensations. Deputy Controller General, NCoS, Mr Ibrahim Idris, disclosed this during the third public hearing of the Independent Investigative Panel on Alleged Corruption and other Violations against the service in Abuja, yesterday. Idris said; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=346790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346791,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346790\/revisions\/346791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/252552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}