The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has urged Nigerians to stop stigmatising ex-convicts and instead help them reintegrate into society.
Mr Ayoola Opadeji, the Controller of Corrections for the NCoS, Oyo State Command, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan.
Opadeji said that many ex-convicts who have gone through correctional centers are now reformed, rehabilitated, and ready to be integrated back into society. He noted that the service has put in place various measures, including formal education, vocational skills acquisition, psychological assessments, and religious counselling to ensure the reformation and rehabilitation of inmates.
“Here in Oyo State, a lot of them are taught carpentry, shoe making, fashion designing, farming, bakery and other trades.
“In our educational programmes, we have some that started their primary and secondary schools here and had minimum of five credits in NECO examination and later went ahead to further their education at tertiary institutions after release from the facility.
“Some are now lawyers, doctors, PhD holders, so they can be employed. I advise that the stigmatisation challenges should be completely erased.
“We have some individuals that their criminal aspect of life have changed positively and now living meaningful lives because they took advantage of the vocational skills training and educational programmes at the centre to develop themselves and established on it after their release,” he said
Opadeji cited the example of an ex-convict, now a well know fashion designer in Lagos State.
He said that the service was however being careful not to divulge his name to avoid stigmatisation as well as not to rundown his business.
However, the controller said that there are some ex-convicts who still went back to crime after their release from the correctional facility.
“It is like criminality is in their blood and those individuals are people who are called jailbirds,” Opadeji said.
The controller said that efforts of the service at reforming inmates have been mostly successful except for some recalcitrant ones.
He urged relevant government agencies and the general public to assist in advocating reduction in stigmatisation of ex-convicts.
Opadeji further called on parents, teachers to instill discipline and morals in their children and students respectively in order to reduce crime in the society
