Minister of Interior, Mr Abba Moro, in this interview with newsmen, speaks on efforts being made to reform the prison system in Nigeria, the dialogue with members of the Boko Haram sect and the renewed agitation for Sovereign National Conference, among other issues. Johnson Babajide, who was there, brings excerpts.How far has your ministry gone with the reformation of the Nigerian prisons'Well, so far I think what we have tried to do in the past couple of months, especially since I assumed the leadership of the Ministry of Interior; was to put our hands on some efforts to ensure that the prison system in Nigeria is reformed. Of course, I want to think that when we talk about reformation, we are talking about giving facelifts to the system in terms of provision of critical infrastructure in the prison system.One of the biggest problem we have today in the prison system in Nigeria is the problem of prison congestion. It is sad to note that in our prisons, prison that is supposed to take about 200 inmates take more than double that number. Prisons that are supposed to take up to 500 inmates take about 1000 inmates and so, generally we have some level of congestion in our prisons, no doubt about it. What is partly responsible for that really is that the justice system has been very slow that more than 72 per cent of our prison inmates are awaiting trial. That means that we have a preponderance of our inmates in the category of persons that don't have access to justice, that don't have access to trial.What we are trying to do now is to categorise our inmates. For instance, we have very many of our prison inmates who are there by say, menial crimes such as house-breaking, theft of bicycles, goats and rams. This constitute a sizeable number of people that are in the prisons today. I think people shouldn't stay in the prisons for a number of years that, ordinarily, are more than even the number of years they would have spent if they were convicted. And so, we are working in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice to see after proper categorisation, how that category of people can be freed; people can be made available for trials so that if they are convicted, they are convicted. If they are not convicted, of course, they should be left the kooks to go.What specifically do you plan to do about prison decongestion'I think that the first step towards reforming the prison system is to ensure that we have adequate prisons that meet also some level of international standard. So, today, we are trying to revitalise the construction of some nine prisons that are part of the 47 prisons whose contracts have been awarded since 1981. Some of them, including the Otukpo Prison, have been abandoned and have not started at all. And so we think, if we complete the 47 prisons whose contract were awarded in 1981, that would go a long way towards providing sufficient accommodation for our inmates. In addition to that, we have already started moves to construct about six prisons for each of our geo-political zones in the country. This is intended primarily to take care of prisoners that are likely going to be transferred from countries, especially UK and Europe who have bilateral agreement with Nigeria on prison transfer.In addition to that, I have more than once reiterated to Nigerians and the world to hear that the prison, ordinarily, is not supposed to be a punishment centre. The prison is supposed to be a correctional centre that is intended primarily to imbue in the inmates some level of skills and knowledge so that when they come out of the prison, they can effectively and properly be integrated into the larger society to serve better cause and that they would not have to go back to the old practices that in the first place warranted their having to be in custody.So, we are trying to make sure that in each of our prisons, we have some level of vocational centres with appropriate infrastructure and tools that can engender in this people a mind of getting into the larger society to be better citizens.Outside that, we have had incidences of jail breaks and attempted jail breaks and we believe this is a problem because large the larger society, we have the problem of lack of appropriate data on our inmates. We don't have adequate biometric record of our inmates such that if prison inmates escape, it becomes absolutely difficult, if not impossible, to track them again and to know who an ex-prisoner or who an ex-convict had been. So, we are trying to introduce some level of what I call electronic prisons in the sense that within our prison environment we should be able to put appropriate technology in place such that escaping from our prison would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. I think above all, what we will do is on a holistic basis to sensitise Nigerians on the virtues of good living, re-engineering our society to believe more in the virtue of hard work and determination and living very useful lives,, instead of taking to crime.One major problem confronting this country is insecurity. While President Goodluck Jonathan said we are winning the war against the Boko Haram sect and other security problems Nigerians are skeptical. What is your take on the situation'The president is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation and the chief security officer of Nigeria. I find it difficult to accept each time we have incidents of bomb blast and suicide bombings and ascribe these incidents to Boko Haram. When we talk about insecurity in Nigeria, Nigerians look readily into the direction of Boko Haram but I think that, ordinarily, the sect has been given larger than life picture in this country. That is not correct; we have instances of armed robbery and kidnapping all over the place. Of course, I know that it is very convenient for the members of the Boko Haram to take responsibility for any act of bomb blast in the country.Having said that, I want to say that the indicators of winning this war against insecurity in the country are there. Day in, day out, week in, week out, you hear of arrests and parading of suspects in such incidents of bomb blasts that we are witnessing in the country today. You also find that some of this people have also been arraigned before our law courts. Whether we like it or not, the ferocity with which suicide bombing and bomb blast have taken in the recent time, especially with the bombing of the United Nations House and the Police Headquarters have definitely abated. I think that is the truth about it.Of course, there is no doubt that it has taken long for the master-minds of bomb blasts and suicide bombing to perfect their strategies and then to occasionally, sometimes with a surprise element, attack infrastructure and human beings. So, these things have taken time to take root; certainly will take time to uproot them. I believe genuinely that Nigeria is waking up to the reality that terrorism is here with us and government is taking appropriate steps, for instance, to block our borders to ensure that the foreign components of infiltrators that participate in this heinous crime of bomb blast are not allowed into our country any more.As a way of addressing these problems, some are calling for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) while some said that the president is right in seeking to dialodue with the Boko Haram sect. What is your view'In the case of the Boko Haram sect, we are in a democracy where one of its tenets is dialogue, that is, consultation and talking to our people. So, Mr President, ordinarily, even in the absence of internal insecurity, has an abiding constitutional responsibility of talking to Nigerians. I do not see anything strange in the president suggesting that we can talk to the members of the Boko Haram sect. They are also Nigerians; even if they are not Nigerians, they are people resident in Nigeria, some legitimately. And so, they have the right of having their president talk to them. So, if members of the Boko Haram sect feel aggrieved about certain aspect of governance, then definitely, it is the responsibility of government to know what their grievances are. I believe very sincerely that it is a welcome development; it is an act of leadership responsibility that Mr President has accepted that he must talk and dialogue with the Boko Haram sect.Having said that, I believe very much that those calling for a Sovereign National Conference to discuss the very foundation of Nigeria are proponents of what I can call confusion because we have a constitutional government in place with constitutional frame works for addressing socio-political, economic problems of the country. We have a legislature that is peopled by representatives of the people and whose constitutional duty is the amendment of certain aspects of the constitution that no longer satisfies the aspiration of Nigerians. And so, I think if we believe in our government, if we have confidence in our government, the right recourse is to the National Assembly for it to address any aberration or lacuna that they think are inherent in the present constitutional framework that would not make for good governance.Outside that, I want to make bold to say here that people who are agitating for SNC today are people who were, at one point or the other in the life of this country, have been in positions of authority to address the issues they are raising today. They are either former national chairmen of big political parties or they are people who have been ministers or who have been advisers in previous administrations but who have not thought it convenient at the time they were in positions of authority to agitate for a solution to the imaginary problems that they contrive today. So, I do not subscribe to any attempt by any set of Nigerians to insist that we must have a SNC at this point in time.Unfortunately, some of the people that are agitating for this type of aberration are people who are either constitutional lawyers or people who should know better. So, I believe very sincerely, with due respect to the elders that are involved in this type of agitation, that they don't mean this country well or that they are inviting chaos and confusion in the country simply because they are not in position of power.
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