The Controller General of Corrections Ja’afaru Ahmed has bagged a merit award from the European Union (EU) for his achievement on human capacity development and infrastructure upgrade.
The award was presented to him during the closing ceremony of project activities support to the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) by the European Union (EU) civipol Head of Preventing Terrorism and Organised Crime, Anne-Claire Zirnhelt at the Service’s National Headquarters Abuja.
Mrs. Anne-Claire said achievements of the Service on the successful training and mentoring of instructors of the training institutions and de-radicalisation programme earned Ja’afaru the award and urged him to do more to bring the desired change to the Service.
The EU project coordinator assistant to NCoS, Saka Azimazi, while congratulating Mr. Ja’afaru, noted that the achievements in the areas of infrastructural development, provision of drugs for inmates, educational and vocational training, expanding crop and animal husbandry at the correctional farm centres for inmates’ training and many more earned the NCoS a new name.
He also described the repealing of the Nigerian Prisons Service Act, CAP P29 laws of the federation 2004 and enacting the Nigerian Correctional Service Act 2019 as a significant milestone towards the development of the service.
The Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, while congratulating the Corrections boss, charged him not to rest on his oars as plenty ground needed to be broken.
Meanwhile, Ja’afaru dedicated the award to the entire officers and men of the Service; stating that it was an honour in recognition of the collective effort of the entire workforce.
He also promised to do more and urged all members of staff of the Service to ensure that they do not only maintain the standard but surpass what have already been done so as to meet international best practice.
It will be recalled that in the wake of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, the Federal Government sort the collaboration of international development partners to work out modalities to deal with the menace.
While the military pursued hard approach, the soft approach, compromising counter narratives, deradicalization and re-socializing extremists, were domiciled in the Nigerian Prisons, now Correctional Service.
