By Blessing Bature


A non governmental organisation, Handel pro-bono link and empowerment foundation has said that treating people in prison with justice and fairness will always has a ripple effect that can helps us to build safer and fairer communities, and promised to assist ex-convict in their quest to reintegrate into society, by helping them to secure free legal services, jobs access, skills, education, and other necessities for them.

The founder of the foundation, Barr Christy Oboh said this during a seminar organized by the foundation with the theme "Enhancing Collaboration for Quick Access to justice in decongestion of Correctional services (centres) in Nigeria". to discuss issues that concerns inmates, justice, security so as to see how they can profer solutions to their challenges.

Oboh said where an ex-offender does not have access to a good reintegration plan, the tendency of reoffending in the face of the challenges of rejection by family and friends, stigmatisation and no means of livelihood and lack of shelter, there is every tendency for re-offending, and this must not be overlooked if we must secure a safe society for all.

According to her, discharged prisoners just like any other Nigerians have the potential of contributing to the socio-political and economic growth of the country but such is dependent on the quality and success of their reintegration process, adding that its disheartening to see government parastatals stating in job application form asking if you're an ex-convict and of course if your answer is yes, you will be denied of that job, this shouldn't be do, she said.

She advocated for a just and fair prison system that treats people with consistency, impartiality and respect, a place where conflict is resolved and people have the opportunity to turn their lives around and recognises that punishment is imposed by the courts, and not by the prison, she reiterated the commitment of the foundation to volunteer in assisting indigent inmates who can not afford the services of lawyers because it's their constitutional rights to have lawyers represent them in court even if they don't have the money to pay for such services.

According to her, Handel pro-bono link and empowerment foundation is a non governmental organisation formed by young lawyers to assist the indigent inmates in the Correctional centres or detention who can not afford to pay for their own legal fee even when the need the legal services to give them justice that they deserves.

In his key note address, the General Secretary, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). Mr. Adesina Adegbite, pointed out causes of decongestion in Correctional centres as delayed justice by the courts, perpetuated by judges, illegal arrests perpetuated by the police, inability of Correctional services indigent inmates to afford services of legal representative and many more reasons.

He suggested ways to decongest the centres by calling on courts to speed up the justice process, counselling the police against illegal arrests and praised the efforts of HANDEL offering Pro-bono services to indigent inmates. He contended that all the effort enumerated could go a long way to decongest the prisons.

Speaking, Alfa Mohammed Esq, Vice President, HPLEF said Handel PROBONO-LINKS has come a long way in the course of providing free legal services to indigent members of the society, especially the inmates in the correctional facilities within its catchment area, Kuje correctional center.

Regrettably, lack of funding has been our major constraints. Going from one court to the other on daily basis requires a lot of funding, and we don't have funders yet.

Therefore, provision of government grants to the NGO will help a lot.

Similarly, admitting the NGO as partners by stakeholder Ministerial, Departmental and Agencies like the offices of Inspector General of the police, the Attorney General of the Federation and the FCT respectfully, as well as the Minister of Interior, amongst others would make our job easier.