Job racketeering scandal rocks prisons
service 26.07.2015.

… applicants pay millions for posts,
promotions Warders extort prisoners,
relatives A thriving payment-for-jobs
racket has been uncovered within the
Nigerian Prisons Service that has left
junior cadre officer disgruntled and is
largely responsible for periodic jailbreaks,
mass violation of prison rules and
regulations, extortion of prisoners and
relatives and drug dealing right within
prison

… applicants pay millions for posts, promotions
Warders extort prisoners, relatives
A thriving payment-for-jobs racket has been
uncovered within the Nigerian Prisons Service that
has left junior cadre officer disgruntled and is
largely responsible for periodic jailbreaks, mass
violation of prison rules and regulations, extortion
of prisoners and relatives and drug dealing right
within prison walls. Insiders said the senor
officials brazenly “sell” job opportunities for
amounts such as N1m, N700,000 and
N350,000/400,000 to desperate unemployed
degree holders, HND holders and school
certificate holders respectively through periodic
backdoor recruitment exercises. Job positions
allegedly being sold include Assistant
Superintendent of Prisons, ASP, Inspector of
Prisons and Prisons Assistants, PA, which was
said to adversely affect upgrading and promotion
of serving officers. It was learnt that posting of
senior officers to man sensitive positions in
prisons across the country was also influenced by
how much money the prospective officers would
pay and not by merit, a practice that was said
has corrupted most of the Deputy-Comptrollers of
Prisons, DCPs, Chief Warders and Yard masters
who man prison yards and has resulted in the
poor quality food being served to inmates,
reckless extortion of money from inmates, poor
maintenance of facilities and gross abuse of
prison rules. In most cases, it was said that the
helpless and uninformed inmates are made to pay
for the maintenance of electric appliances and
boreholes just to recoup the money officers had
paid as bribes before postings. The Controller-
General of Prisons Dr. Peter Ezenwa Ekpendu, is
being blamed for the rot allegedly perpetrated in
the system. Wanton corruption was found to be
pervasive in the system ranging from
maladministration, to poor welfare programme
implementation, reckless extortion, indiscriminate
promotion and postings of staff among others.
Some officers who spoke with our correspondent
claimed that those recruited since 2009 with
school certificate as prisons assistant and, and
supposed to be promoted at the end of every
three years intervals even after obtaining their
first degrees for six years running, were neither
promoted nor upgraded but subjected to series of
fruitless promotion interviews as a matter of
formality. Other reliable insider sources disclosed
that they are not being paid salaries
commensurate with other sister organisations like
Customs, Immigrations and Nigeria Security and
Civil Defence corps, yet, junior officers are
subjected to pay deductions and non-payment of
allowances over the years. Some of the junior
cadre officers, who separately spoke to this
newspaper under conditions of anonymity
apparently, regretted that even though the junior
workers are the main workforce of the service,
they are being suppressed, marginalised,
neglected and voiceless. “We are not being paid
as uniformed officers like our sister organisations,
our promotions don’t come as and when due. We
observe almost regularly, deductions from our
salary monthly. The incessant jails breaks and
riots we experience in prisons yards are because
of the negligence we suffer, we hold the keys to
the cells, operate the normal prisons rules and
nobody comes to work happy because of the way
we are being maltreated. We know the normal
duties of prison officers but they lay the whole
blame to terrorism and riots without finding out
the root causes. We have actually lost confidence
because of the problems the authority imposed on
us and, thus derive no pleasure in doing the job
which we have been assigned to do’. But Ekpendu
in his recent familiarization tour of prisons in
Owerri, capital of Imo State said while fielding
questions from pressmen that the incessant
jailbreaks were caused by the use of mobile
phones by inmates and explained that it was the
reason why he banned the use of cell phones in
prisons. The corruption in the service trickles
down to the inmates according to findings by our
correspondent. It was gathered that many
inmates who are awaiting trial or jailed for
serious offences like armed robbery, kidnapping,
murder, Indian hemp and human trafficking
among others are found right inside the prison
yards, smoking and trading in Indian hemps with
the connivance of the prisons officers in-charge
of the yards. Most worrisome is the criminal
conspiracy between some unscrupulous prisons
officers and lawyers who defraud inmates and
their parents or guardians of hige sums of money
for bail applications. Other types of extortions
alleged in the yard are alleged payment of N50,
N100 and N300 to warders before they would
allow inmates to walk or exercise within the
perimeter of the prison yard. “Parents, guardians,
friends and other relatives of inmates are made
to part with N400 on each visit before they would
be allowed to see or give food to their beloved
ones. Inmates pay money to get mattresses and
are incessantly harassed and dehumanised. They
are served poor quality food even dogs cannot
eat”, one source said. Part of the problem it is
was learnt has to do with high rate of congestion,
which puts pressure on the system. Random
visits to some prisons across the country such as
Abia, Imo, Ebonyi and Anambra have the same
shocking experience of maladministration and
neck-deep corruption. And in similar cases, the
visited prisons accommodate inmates beyond
their capacities. For instance, Umuahia prisons in
Abia State was built for 500 inmates but it keeps
about 1,000 as at the time our reporter visited.
Efforts to get the NPS head quarters to comment
of the allegations were not successful. However,
the Abia State Comptroller of Prison, Mrs. Nnenna
Kalu, in an interview with Sunday Mirror however
denied all the allegations of extortion and
maladministration rocking the system. She said
the prisons were being run based on extant rules
spelt out by the service.

Source: http://m.nationalmirroronline.net/article/job-racketeering-scandal-rocks-prisons-service/?page=7&article-id=32466

Na today?
All ministries, parastatals, commissions, agencies....are all involved in job racketeering cum scams

Abugab:
Na today?
All ministries, parastatals, commissions, agencies....are all involved in job racketeering cum scams

The NPS CG I learnt is even messing the system up big time. crimes ranging from selling of NPS FG lands in Enugu and other state commands

Such is the level of corruption.

Just wait until #babaGoSlowAndSteady visits their plight. All those corrupt idiots will run! They will turn from prison officers to prisoners. #ItrustPMB

Tesiday:


The NPS CG I learnt is even messing the system up big time. crimes ranging from selling of NPS FG lands in Enugu and other state commands, to giving his wife double promotion, while her mates are CSP and ACP, she is now DCP and has recently been posted to head Lagos Female Prison at Kirikiri as Officer In Charge.

Such is the level of corruption.

Very sad.
Those who got what they did not merit will meet their time with due diligence and due process soon

Why someone would even want to work here in the first place is beyond me talk less of racketeering.

God abeg.