By Emma Onuwa
The Attorney General of Nasarawa State Barrister Mohammed Hassan Abdullahi has given a written approval of one year to the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria to pay monthly visits to the Custodian Centers within Nasarawa State without hitches.
According information made available to NaijaBlitzNews.com by an Assistant Director of the organisation Amaka Agbaih on Wednesday, this decision was reached after due consultation by both parties and
based on this, the council recently visited the new custodial center
Keffi and interviewed a total of 14 inmates for representation in courts within the state.
These inmates offence ranges from culpable homicide, conspiracy
and armed robbery, criminal conspiracy, culpable homicides and possession of fire arms, banditry and kidnapping as well as criminal intimidation and being in possession of stollen chicken.
The age bracket of the inmates ranges from 18-35 years, a situation that
calls for concern.
The custodial centres have about 866 inmates both convicted and
awaiting trials an indication that crime rate in Nigeria continues to soar high despite the effort of the Federal Government and relevant stakeholders to ensure that crime in the country is curtailed to the bearest minimum.
However, an encouraging news is that
the custodial centres as seen from keffi shows that the Federal Government is setting up annexes of the national open university centres in various
custodial centres across the country.
According to the welfare officer of the institution Mr. Garba Rabiu, the on-line school was established in the year 2012 with just 2 inmates as students but presently the number have risen to 122 students out of which 11 will be graduating soon.
Presently the institution offers courses in Bsc, Msc and PHD in criminology and security studies, peace studies and
conflict resolution, early child hood education, health education, entrapreneural and business studies, political science, computer science, public health, tourism as well as
business administration and public administration.
The centre is well equipped with
computers since it is an on-line course with visiting lecturers once in a while and enrollment into the centre is open to both convicted inmates and awaiting trials.
One of the inmates Mr. Chinedu Emmanuel just finished his jail term for fraud and he will soon be rounding up his PHD programme on business administration explained that some of the challenges faced by the students include lack of printer, generator and photocopier amongst others.
The DCC/CC of the Custodian Center Ezekiel Kaga who was recently promoted to deputy controller of the Correctional Center should be commended for the management of the center as he ensures that the environment outside and within the premises are clean.
He must be commended also for the robust out look of the inmates making the center look truly like a correctional center as the name conotes.
The center also offers opportunity for other crafts like tailoring, shoe making, hair barbing and other handiwork.
Legal Aid Council under the leadership of Aliyu Bagudu Abubaker has offered to remains the official voice
of the indigent citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
END
