The Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, on Tuesday said top officers of the Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS) are not doing their job efficiently.
Dambazau stated this while addressing senior officers of the Service on ways to end frequent jail breaks in the country.
He said: “Quite a number of prisons have structural problems, even the most recent ones are not constructed to the standard.
“I’m aware that a number of them are very old. I have visited some of them and some are as old as a century.
“I’m also aware that the number of inmates have increased while the facilities have not been expanded.
“Top officers are not doing what is required to ensure the security of the prisons like patrolling the prisons, manning the towers, keeping records, knowing how many prisoners you have by names not by numbers.
“Why will somebody who is to be on duty will be absent and nobody will say anything about it, someone who suppose to patrol will not patrol and nothing is done about it, why is it that someone who suppose to man towers will not man it and nothing will happen?”
He warned that “anybody who has the responsibility of looking after a prison must hold that responsibility squarely because if anything happens, you will be held responsible.”
In his speech, the Controller General of NPS, Ja’afaru Ahmed, said, “There are cases where staff decides to absent themselves from duty with reckless abandon and necessary supervision is not carried out.
“My administration is poised to reduce every form of indiscipline and we will continue to deal with truancy and other compromising attitudes capable of giving a bad image to the Nigeria Prisons Service.”
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