No fewer than 50 medical doctors and a hundred nurses have been approved for recruitment for the country’s Correctional Centres (formerly Nigerian Prisons) by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, the Minister of Ministry of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji- Ojo has disclosed.

This disclosure was made by the Minister in Abuja during the courtesy visit paid on him by his counterpart from Ministry of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, stressing that the approval was given in response of the President to the cry of shortage of medical personnel in several Correctional Centres in the country.

According to Dr. Tunji-Ojo, “Mr President has approved the employment of 50 medical doctors and 100 nurses for our correctional centres across the country. In fact, the hospital in one of the Correctional Centres in Rivers State does not have a single medical doctor to render services to inmates”.

The Minister disclosed that some correctional facilities possess modern equipment capable of handling major surgical procedures, adding, “some of our correctional centres, such as the one in Kuje, have equipment that can perform major surgeries”.

While commending the president for prioritizing the welfare of inmates, he said “Mr President understands that he is the president of all Nigerians, including inmates. As a father to all, he has consistently shown that he cares”.

Dr. Tunji-Ojo made it known that the Federal Government had introduced capacity-building initiatives for inmates through a train-the-trainer programme, noting that “we have been able to build capacity through what we call the train-the-trainer programme. We carried out what we call an inmate skills audit. We went round the Correctional Centres to identify the skills these inmates already possess.

“We now empower those inmates to train others and we support those who graduate from the programme. We have also sanitized the system and the president has done very well by increasing the inmates’ feeding allowance by 50 per cent”, the minister added.

He called on the Ministry of Information and National Orientation to help communicate the achievements of the Ministry of Interior to Nigerians, saying, “we want you to come and see some of the things we have been able to achieve.

“In terms of our national security strategy, we want to collaborate more with you so that there can be a coordinated communication strategy” he said further.

The Minister also highlighted initiatives by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to protect mining sites across the country. In the NSCDC, we have created what we call Mine Marshals in collaboration with the Ministry of Solid Minerals to secure our minefields.

“You can already see the effect. There has been a reduction in criminality and violence in the sector as well as better protection of critical national assets”, he stated further.