The Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has stated that staff of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) requires psychological evaluation for proper work efficiency. Tunji-Ojo spoke on allegations of corruption, abuse of position, and other violations at the NCoS, stressing that personnel of the service must be intolerance to corruption.
The Minister said he had no apology for saying so, insisting that bribery or other forms of corruption in the NCoS should be viewed in the context of the giver and the taker.
Declaring open the second public hearing of the Independent Investigative Panel on Alleged Corruption and other violations against the NCoS at Abuja Continental Hotel, Tunji-Ojo noted that by now, NCoS personnel are expected to be agents of rehabilitation, restoration, reformation, and transformation.
“Beyond physical infrastructure and strategic reforms, NCoS personnel should be agents of rehabilitation, restoration, and transformation. They should not be for incarceration and condemnation. When condemnation takes the place of corrections, then the system will fail.”
“Our correctional officers need psychological evaluation to be able to carry out their duties effectively and efficiently. Our system needs a man who is psychologically sound to be able to attend to the needs of someone else who is psychologically down.”
“When the subject of protection becomes the target of abuse, then there is a problem.”
He advised the Secretary of the Panel to come up with holistic recommendations that would address the challenges facing the NCoS.
Tunji-Ojo said the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has invested so much in the welfare of personnel of para-military services through promotion, increase in salaries and payments of peculiar allowances to encourage them to do their jobs diligently.
According to him, over 52,000 personnel were promoted within 18 months of the Tinubu administration coming to office with all backlogs of promotion cleared.
He recalled that the President recently approved the establishment of Paramilitary Academy for the services for career progression and development.
He stressed that the era of people benefitting from a dysfunctional system is gone forever as the present administration and himself would continue to do things the right ways.