Nigerian Correctional Service frees 28,149 inmates after payment of fines, compensation in 2024

The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) says 28,149 inmates were released nationwide in 2024 after the payment of fines and compensations.

Deputy Controller General, NCoS, Mr Ibrahim Idris, disclosed this during the third public hearing of the Independent Investigative Panel on Alleged Corruption and other Violations against the service on Thursday in Abuja.

Idris said; “Last year, 28,149 inmates were released as a result of payment of fines and compensations.

“I also want to urge the panel and the public that payment of fine and compensation is a very charitable thing to do.”

Idris, therefore, praised the role of charitable interventions in decongesting correctional facilities, adding that it had helped the Federal Government a lot.

“But when an individual wants to do it, he should follow the example of the Honourable Minister, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo.

“This is when inmates were chosen, and the compensation, the fine were paid, and the inmates were even given repatriation money,” he added.

Idris maintained that the fewer the inmates in custody, the better the opportunity for proper rehabilitation.

This, he said, was because even before the 2019 Act, the philosophy of NCoS had always been imprisonment as rehabilitation, and not for punishment.

“While it is pronounced, it is already punishment, whether the person comes to the correctional centre or not, it is already taken care of,” he said.