Prison service: We can’t keep feeding inmates, they must farm

The Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) says it intends to set up specialised farm centres so that prisoners will be able to feed themselves.

Jaffaru Ahmed, comptroller-general general of NPS, said this on Monday when he appeared before the house of representatives committee on interior.

He said every year, the service spends about N18 million to feed over 70,000 inmates across the country.

The prisons boss added that the NPS owed about N5 billion to contractors for feeding prisoners.

He told the committee that N6 billion had been approved to employ 6,545 officials into various cadre in the NPS.

“We intend to set up specialised farm centres, and train them towards production and make prisons able to feed itself,” he said.

“We need enough money and massive money to rehabilitate prisons, build new prisons and get away from urban centres.

“There is need to move prisons out of urban centres because there is no room of expansion and to site industries and install equipment for food processing to reduce the burden on government, some of them are over 100 years.”

Giving an insight into budget performance of the NPS, Ahmed said in 2016, salaries of over 27,000 officials were delayed because N27.9 billion was released out of N34.9 billion proposal for personnel.

He proposed that six ultra-modern prisons with a 3,000 capacity should be constructed in each geo-political zone.