Stakeholders in the justice and correctional sectors have called on the Federal Government to reform the correctional centres to restore the dignity of inmates and address their mental-health challenges.
They also urged the government to strengthen the country’s rehabilitation and reintegration structures across the country’s correctional centres.
The stakeholders spoke yesterday in Abuja at the 2025 Seminar Series of the Shamies Unusual Heart Foundation (SUHF), themed “Restoring Dignity and Reducing Recidivism: Education, Partnerships, and Innovation in Nigeria’s Correctional System.”
Speaking at the event, Executive Director of SUHF, Ebenezer Akarah, said the foundation’s programmes focus on reducing recidivism by strengthening inmates’ mental health, education, and access to opportunities both inside and outside correctional centres.
Akarah commended the Nigerian Correctional Service for what he described as significant improvements in rehabilitation, inmate education, and institutional support over recent years.
The high-level forum brought together policymakers, security agencies, justice sector actors, development partners, academics, civil society organisations, and practitioners in the correctional value chain.
Akarah noted that SUHF has, since 2019, implemented several mental-health and skills-based initiatives in correctional centres.
According to him, in 2024, the foundation established technology hubs in both Suleja and Kuje Correctional Centres, enabling inmates to access digital learning and formal education behind bars.
He said, “One major issue is mental health. Our correctional system gives little attention to that area, so our foundation has focused there since 2019. We’ve had great improvements. This year, we set up a tech centre at Suleja and Kuje Correctional Centres to give inmates access to quality education even behind bars.
“Mental health is important because talents exist even inside prison. People inside have higher expectations from society once they leave, and society often stigmatizes them.
“Anyone can be behind bars. Going behind bars doesn’t make you less human. Some speakers even said it can be an opportunity to reflect, rethink, and reintegrate properly into society.”
The Medical Director of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Kaduna, Professor Aishatu Yusha’u Armiyau, said mental-health challenges in correctional centres remain severely underestimated.
Representing the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) President, she explained that many inmates enter correctional facilities already struggling with mental-health issues, while others develop them due to isolation, trauma, or lack of family support.
She said, “Almost everyone there has a behavioural issue. Behaviour led them there. Many do not have mental illness but have emotional and psychological strain.”
Armiyau, who has worked in correctional facilities for a decade, called for full integration of psychiatric, emotional, and psychological support into everyday correctional management.
She praised SUHF for its continuous engagement and urged other partners to adopt similar commitments.
Also speaking, Magistrate Farida Ibrahim of the FCT Judiciary, said correctional reforms must prioritise rehabilitation, education, and partnerships to build safer communities.
She said, “A theme not only timely, but crucial – because justice that punishes without transforming prepares people to return, not reform. True justice must balance accountability with empowerment, discipline with learning, and conviction with rehabilitation.
“For far too long, correctional conversations have centered on punishment alone. But the moment we ignore rehabilitation, we weaken society. The moment we invest in it, we strengthen the nation.”
She added that education equips inmates with critical thinking and employable skills; partnerships build the support systems that sustain them beyond confinement; and reintegration ensures that they do not return to crime out of frustration or exclusion.
Magistrate Ibrahim urged all stakeholders, judicial officers, policymakers, civil society actors, development partners, correctional officers, educators, and advocates to carry the outcomes of the seminar beyond the event hall.
She added, “Let us commit to a correctional system that is humane, not dehumanizing; restorative, not vindictive; transformative, not wasteful; and reintegrative, not isolating.”
She commended SUHF for “rewriting narratives, restoring identities, advocating humane correctional reforms, and giving second chances where doors were once shut.”
