15 Prisoners Set to Receive University Degrees, One Undertaking PhD Studies says Prison Service

Share the News
Obiajulu Joel Nwolu

John Mrabure, the acting Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Correctional Service, has disclosed that at least 15 convicts are in line to be conferred with bachelor’s degrees in different academic disciplines while another inmate has defended his PhD thesis.

He said it is a testament that Nigeria prisons reform inmates and debunked claims that convicts become more hardened criminals after they had been released from prison.

This was contained in his speech, delivered by his representative, Abdul-Rahman Maiyaki, the Comptroller of NCS in the FCT, during the fifth anniversary of The Voice Nigeria Project organised in partnership with OXFAM with the theme, “Prouder and Louder; Shine On.”

Maiyaki said, “The government is doing a lot because we have psychological therapy, we have vocational training, we have education so much that as it is now, in my FCT command, we have undergraduates that will soon get their degrees under the National Open University that is running within the correctional facility.

“We have up to 15 of them that will soon graduate with their first degree. And in Lagos, we have somebody who is about to finish his PhD thesis. So, the story that those who go into the correctional service get damaged is a wrong impression.

“The government has been doing a lot and that belief that correctional centres make inmates to be hardened is old history and not in the current dispensation of the formation with the rehabilitation, reintegration agenda of the Nigerian Correctional Services.

“That is the reason the name was changed from prisons to correction because people have not taken note of a lot of things that have been happening behind the walls. Many people have actually been reformed and properly reintegrated into the wider society and they become good citizens.”

This post was written by Obiajulu Joel Nwolu.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *