The Sun News On-line|Abuja Reports

At his maiden meeting with senior prisons officers and other stakeholders shortly after mounting the saddle as the nation’s chief jail-master, Olusola Ogundipe, Controller General of the Nigerian Prisons Service [NPS], shot point-blank, as he roamed through a mental landscape of the agency. Arguably the tallest man in the Prisons Service, Ogundipe had equally tall dreams despite the myriad of problems confronting him.

While publicly admitting that the Nigerian Prisons Service was indeed, sick and needed urgent surgery, he nonetheless vowed not to be buoyed by the thorny path he had been destined to tread.

His predicament was further worsened by the fact that prior to his appointment as the prisons boss, the first retreat for the top echelon of the Service which held at Makurdi, Benue state, had painstakingly diagonized and made lofty recommendations to the Federal Government. Yet, nothing positive came out of it and Ogundipe did not mince words in saying so.

Hear him: "The first retreat in Makurdi in September, 2003, attracted not only the top echelon of the Nigerian Prisons Service, but also local and international NGOs especially the British Council Department for International Development, which played a very pivotal role in bringing about the retreat. The Makurdi retreat exhaustively discussed the problems of the prisons and came to the conclusion that there were external as well as internal problems bedeviling the Service.

"After chronicling these problems, the retreat also agreed that while the Service waited for government for the resolution of the identified external problems, it was our belief that the internal problems were within the purview of the officers and management of the Prisons Service to resolve. There were high expectations after the retreat that the Service will soon march forward with these resolutions passed. "Unfortunately, due to the absence of political will, none of these resolutions were implemented and we returned to business as usual.

This lack of proactive action on the part of officers led cumulatively to the worst assault the Service had experienced in over 130 years of history. By this, I mean the jail-breaks and riots in Port Harcourt, Ogwashiuku, Abeokuta , Sokoto, Auchi, Ikoyi Medium security and Onitsha prisons".

Worried over the general decay and despondency that became the lot of his officers and men, Ogundipe organized another retreat, being the second of its kind for senior prisons officers in March last year at Ada, Osun state. In justifying the move, the CGP said it was necessitated by the gross dissatisfaction of both prisons officers and other stakeholders in the sector, with the condition of the nation’s prisons.
The retreat came alongside with the commencement of the Federal Government reform of the prisons service.
Eleven months thereafter, Ogindipe says there is now a flicker of hope as the reforms have turned out to be the needed tonic to rejuvenate the Nigerian Prisons Service. Indeed, he is confident that the reforms represent a paradigm shift that would position the organization as a service-oriented agency. He also said computerization of the agency’s staff salaries has ended the era of shortfalls, backlog of promotional arrears, ghost staff, and unpaid leave grants, among other problems.

His words: "The much needed reforms of the Prisons Service has come courtesy of the political will and cooperation of the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Interior, as well as the Federal Government and its Bureau for Public Service Reforms. The reforms and what they represent appear to have woken us up from slumber. Many people had unfortunately seen these reforms from the narrow prism of downsizing and rightsizing. However, the reforms represent a paradigm shift that will position the Nigerian Prisons Service as a service-oriented agency.

The reforms involve structural transformation of the Service that will not only create for it, a five directorate structure, but also a structure that will be revolutionary in terms of the way the skills and tasks are grouped together and arranged in homogenous patterns. This will create the latitude for prompt response to administrative and operational challenges in an endearing and consistent fashion, creating a bureaucracy that is both dynamic and proactive.

Computerization of the whole gamut of the Prisons Service is another aspect of these reforms. Computerization of staff salaries has become one of the hallmarks of the success of this administration. Computerization has ended the era of shortfalls, backlog of promotional arrears, ghost staff, unpaid leave grants, and so on. All these now belong to history.

With computerization, prompt payment of salaries nationwide is now guaranteed. It has also removed arbitrary salary disbursement. Our desire to midwife a reformed prisons service does not have room for complacency. It cannot be compromised.
We want a modern prison system. We’ve been given the opportunity to develop one.

We want to see a Nigerian Prisons Service that is dogged not only by the very best practices, but also one that promotes service efficiency as a matter of routine. A Nigerian Prisons Service that takes its rightful place in the social division of labour in Nigeria as an agency that delivers on criminal justice corrections.

We want to see a Nigerian Prisons Service that lives up to its role as keeper of internal security and also as an agency that promotes public safety. We are creating a level playing ground for officers who have been positioned to rise up to the challenges of transforming the Nigerian Prisons Service to the national ideal".