ABUJA – The Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) said it presently has over 467 functional vocational training workshops and cottage industries across the various prison formations in the country.
The spokesperson of the service, Mr Francis Enobore, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.
Enobore said the service would ensure a sustained vocational training for inmates across the country as part of efforts to rehabilitate them.
He said the 239 prisons across the country had vocational training programmes for inmates, ranging from carpentry, hairdressing, barbing, painting, decoration and photography.
He said the 10 cottage industries engaged in the specialised training of inmates include: the Prisons Printing Industry in Lagos and Kuje Prisons Industry Complex in the FCT.
Others are: the Prisons Soap Cottage Industry in Owerri and the Prisons Furniture Cottage Industry, Ilesha, Osun.
He said the NPS also had about 47 Prison Farm Centers which trained inmates in modern agricultural techniques such as poultry, cropping, fishery, piggery and husbandry.
Enobore then disclosed that in 2014, no fewer than 2,700 inmates were trained in various vocational skills, while about 480 inmates sat for the SSCE/NECO examinations.
He said that the effective use of these facilities by the inmates had gone a long way in transforming their lives.
He said that the vocational training scheme remained vital to the rehabilitation of inmates and taking their minds off crime during and after their jail terms.
“Part of our core mandate is to ensure vocational training for inmates so as to aid them in the eventual reintegration into the society as law abiding citizens on completion of their jail terms,’’ the spokesman said.
Enobore said the organisation would continue to improve on its service delivery to ensure that Nigerian prisons remained corrective and rehabilitative centres for inmates.
He said it would also continue to help them take their minds off violence and criminality when they eventually re-united with the outside world.
