From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The ellow Ribbon Advocacy Campaign has called for an end to the stigmatisation of ex-convicts in Nigeria with the view of unlocking their potentials and contributing to the nation’s workforce.
Addressing reporters during a sensitisation’s campaign in Benin, Executive Director, Securing the Creative Goldmine in Youths Initiative and the Edo State convener, Yellow Ribbon Advocacy Campaign, Edwin Asibor, said due to stigmatisation of ex-convicts in employments and in politics, some of the best brains have been denied the opportunities to work and contribute meaningfully to the growth of the nation’s economy.
He said nobody is immune to the custody because individuals could be there as a result of false accusations, due to petty offences or serious offences but that, the main concern is how such person is treated thereafter.
Asibor said the Correctional Centres are built in a way to discipline and correct inmates including those who committed minor and after release, they fall back to the ultimate prison of stigmatisation and total rejection by family, friends, communities, society and the government as seen in the area of employment or vying for electoral positions.
The convener of the group maintained that stigmatisation is one of the major reasons for re-offending behaviour among ex-inmates and that for it to be corrected, the government at all levels should provide a well managed temporary shelter where released inmates are psychosocially and spiritually restored to normal functioning before joining their families.
He added that facilities to separate first offenders from second or previous offenders in their respective cells just as called for effective utilisation of non-custodial centres in correcting petty offences instead of being sent to the custody.
Also speaking, an ex-convict, Hanson Oracle, said he was highly discriminated against when he came back from the Oko Correctional Centre.
‘They saw me as nobody and they stigmatised me with different names.
‘Non of the companies and the private sector accepted my application.
‘It was very bad. I regretted it but thank God today that I am alive and I can boldly speak because I was falsely detained and the court granted me No Case Submission,’ he said.