Careful planning

He added: “These farm centres can be transformed into modern agribusiness hubs where inmates are exposed to contemporary farming techniques, agro-processing and value chain opportunities. This goes beyond feeding inmates; it equips them with lifelong skills.”

Good thinking, if you ask us. Indeed, it would be a game changer for inmates in the country, if well implemented.

For so long, we have always regarded prisoners as outcasts who can no longer be useful to themselves, not to talk of the society.

This is wrong.

Elsewhere, ex-prisoners are doing great as a result of the trainings they received while in prison. Even here at home, we have seen prisoners who excelled in educational pursuits. Some of them even did well than those in the outside world.

Being an inmate should not be a death sentence.

As the minister and other speakers at the forum observed, the idea is one that should be well received by all.

The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has 18 farm centres and 10 cottage industries across approximately 10,000 hectares nationwide. Apart from agricultural produce, the farm centres are also into fishery, poultry and piggery, among others.

The impact of these centres is however not being felt due to several constraints including, but not limited to operational, financial, and infrastructural challenges. Broken down, the farm centres’ problems include lack of modern equipment, severe underfunding, and the failure of produced food to reach inmates.

Read Also: Wellington College International Lagos Welcomed in London Amid Historic UK–Nigeria State Visit

Our main concern however is security, especially of the inmates. We do not know how the government intends to ensure that inmates do not escape from the farms. Even while in the confines of the correctional centres, we have had  several jailbreaks and attempted jailbreaks, with either some of the inmates trying to escape justice or being aided by their colleagues from outside to escape from the correctional centres.

The security question is one that is germane and must be answered before the inmates can be exposed en masse to large scale farming, the type that the ministry is contemplating.

It would be counterproductive to create another major problem in the course of solving one.

Inmates in correctional centres fall under different categories. There are those who are there for minor offences just as we also have those convicted or are awaiting trial for grievous criminal charges.

It would be disastrous for law-abiding citizens if hardened criminals who just began to serve their jail terms escape into the society in the process of making them work at the farm centres.

This security issue would be about the major challenge when this project takes off.

Other problems like inadequate funding, around which other challenges revolve (i.e. lack of modern equipment) are relatively easier to solve where the will is there.

Perhaps the only thing that can mitigate the fears concerning possible frequent and mass escape of the inmates from the farm centres is the fact that the proposed project is being planned as a public/private initiative. It is unlikely that private investors would want to go into any project that cannot guarantee returns for their investments.

Beside this preliminary observation, the idea is a win-win situation for all -- the government, the society and even the inmates themselves.