Mr. Benson Ngozi Iwuagwu is the Executive Director, Prison Fellowship Nigeria (PFN). He holds a post-graduate diploma in Restorative Justice from Queens University, Ontario, Canada. Between May 2011 and last December, he was the Prison Fellowship International (PFI) Envoy for Anglophone Africa. He has been involved in Prison Ministry since 1980. In this interview with Legal Editor, JOHN AUSTIN UNACHUKWU, he speaks on the Oneosmus project and how to reduce crime.
What is the essence of the Prison Fellowship International?
Prison Fellowship International, with the vision of “being a community of restoration for all those involved in and affected by crime, in demonstration of the love of God through Jesus Christ”, is the global body of countries, where churches have come together under the common name – Prison Fellowship. Presently, PFI has over 127 countries as members with category 2 consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Socio Cultural Committee (UNECOSOC). Prison Fellowship Nigeria has been chartered with PFI since 1992. Our membership in PFI affords us a massive network and programme resource base around the world. We have concrete and material presence in 25 states of our country. From Borno to Delta, Adamawa to Akwa Ibom States, thousands of our volunteers daily visit the prisons to provide spiritual, medical, material, literacy and legal support to the inmates. Spouses and children of inmates are not forgotten, within our limited resources we pay rents, school fees and provide, in appropriate cases, family upkeep allowance.
What is the impact of this fellowship on inmates?
The impact of Prison Fellowship Ministry on our prison inmates, with all sense of modesty, is monumental. What an inmate wants most for stabilisation in and out of prison is psychosocial support, which we provide in structured and consistent measure on the basis of God’s love through Jesus Christ for their reformation and the peace and good of our society.
Do you have any programme to monitor the lifestyle and condition of freed inmates to stop them from doing things that are likely to return them to the prison?
The unique nature of our church based membership makes it easy to link an exiting inmate to a member church near where he or she decides to settle. This arrangement provides the very critical post release support circle for follow up and basic provisions. In appropriate cases, we assign specific mentors to exiting prison inmates, who help them in planning and implementation of their life plan, often drawn up by the inmate before release. This area has been very challenging for a number of reasons-hostile social receptions for returning ex-inmates, discriminatory statutory barriers and very limited resources in the face of mounting needs. To mitigate this, we intend to launch a social engagement and participation programme, tagged: “Green Ribbon Campaign” an attitudinal change campaign to create conducive social environment for re-entry of ex-prisoners back to society. Rehabilitation and re-integration of ex-prison inmates is a social responsibility, being sanctimonious and discriminatory against returning ex-prison inmates is akin to biting the nose to spite the face.
What is this Onesimus learning programme all about?
Life Recovery Pre-release Empowerment Programme, a.k.a “The Onesimus Project”, presently running in the medium security and female prisons in Kirikiri, is a mentoring, personality and skill enhancement programme with set curriculum primarily targeted at inmates with 6 months to completion of their sentence and continues 12 months post release. Admission is open to all inmates, regardless of beliefs, so long as the individual is able to understand some English Language and be committed to attend classes and do assignments.
How does the programme run?
“The Onesimus Project” is run in partnership with Covenant University, their professors and lecturers come all the way from Ota to hold classes, conduct psycho-clinicals and counseling. The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), takes care of the Business and Entrepreneurial development component of the programme. Their specialist trainers come to train the inmates. Prison Fellowship takes care of the spiritual instructions and vocational skill component of the programme.
What is the duration of the programme?
At the end of the six months’ training, graduation holds at which successful inmates are issued certificate of completion, signed by the four partnering institutions: Nigerian Prison Service, Covenant University, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria and Prison Fellowship Nigeria. The Certificate, prima facie, is a testimony of refinement and training. It makes the holder eligible for post release small business support and venture seed capital. To date, we have matriculated about 130 and graduated about 90. We are constrained by infrastructure and funding to take a limited number each session.
Do you have other collaborators?
Our major collaborators are the hundreds of churches, who provide thousands of foot soldiers and support. Covenant University, Ota, provides the very critical and vital professional competences and skills in the core and sensitive areas of human personality dysfunction, evaluation and therapy. SMEDAN comes in to equip the inmate with knowledge and skills in business and enterprise development to be their own employers. By the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the partners, each partner bears its own costs.
Graduates of “The Onesimus Project”, have shown more resilience in the face of adverse social conditions, recidivism rate among our Onesimus graduates is about 20 per cent, against the general average of 70 per cent.
What level of support and collaboration are you enjoying from the government?
We have enjoyed the basic and primary support of access to prisons and collaboration from government at the various state chapter levels, and Prison Commands. SMEDAN is a Federal Government agency in the Presidency and a very strategic partner in the Onesimus Project. We have the understanding to replicate Onesimus Project in other prison commands in the country. We have had support from the Ministries of Health, Justice and Social Welfare during specific inmate welfare intervention programmes. A lot more however remains.
You have been on the crusade for restorative justice as an integral part of our criminal justice administration. How would it work?
Restorative justice for a while has been in the global eye as an emerging criminal justice system that more readily encapsulates the concerns and varied interests connected with the commission of crime and its aftermaths; the offender, victim and community. The United Nations Basic Principles on the use of Restorative Justice in criminal matters, endorsed in 2002, does not define Restorative Justice, but assigns usages to the terms “Restorative Process” and “Restorative outcomes”; these are very significant and underscore the distinction of restorative justice as meeting the true ends of justice which is peace. Whilst our extant criminal justice system views crime as a violation of law and the state, Restorative Justice views crime as a violation of persons and relationships; the former aims for punishment and deterrence and the latter for reparation and healing.
Our criminal law is adversarial, technical and impersonal without cognisance for the victim or even for the society. Its primary intent is to punish the offender as deterrence to other would be offenders. Restorative justice on the other hand, views crime differently, aims to heal the harms and hurts caused by the offender; give him opportunity to account for his or her actions, take responsibility and in conference with the victim and community and agree on how to make up for his or her actions.
Restorative justice is not a demonisation of our extant criminal justice system, but it does provide a viable complement and option worthy of serious engagement.
Is restorative justice system applicable to Nigeria only or is it applied by other countries of the world?
South Africa and Zimbabwe are other African countries are using the Restorative Justice options. The horrendous overcrowding and its concomitant dehumanisation of our inmates, absolutely makes any form of reform a tall dream. Prison governors after prison governors bemoan the impossibility of inmate reformation in the face of suffocating congestions. No amount of rejigging a wrong headed and premised criminal law will work. It is trite once the premise of an argument is wrong its conclusions cannot, but be irremediably flawed. Restorative Justice is based on human values, rights and communal safety, more reflective of the intents of the social contract upon which law and government began. Our criminal law is based on the abstract and nebulous concept of state and the king’s peace. It just cannot deliver peace. England has a well developed Restorative Justice Protocol and practice, so does Canada.
It is heartwarming that the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, in its characteristic trail blazing initiatives, has entered into an understanding with Prison Fellowship Nigeria to do a Restorative Justice Pilot project in the state.
What do you think is responsible for rising crime?
At the root of crime and criminality are a conundrum of predisposing factors, basic of which is lack of provision of food, clothes and shelter for the vast majority of our people and the perception of how our commonwealth is being managed. The average Nigerian is on his or her own, at home or abroad. The late musical icon Fela Anikulapo Kuti, we may not agree with his social life style, but most of his songs highlighted the problems-high handedness of the ruling class, selfishness and greed, oppression of the poor. The social injustice around us is simply nauseating.
How do we address the problem of crime in the society?
To begin to truly address crime, the government must, in some way, begin to give a sense of belonging to the citizens. Yes, it is said, do not ask what your country will give you, but what you can do for your country. But you first must belong to the country! Our ruling elite and their bourgeoisie club members, with due respects, are no better than the colonial masters- oppressive, exploitative and aloof. In pursuit of their political spoils, they arm the youths, dose, use and dump them. What do you expect? That the youths will fold their hands? Go into any of our prisons, they are brimming with young men and women. Tell me, can you walk up to your local government or state and demand as of right as a citizen? Our political tacticians now talk of “stomach infrastructure” by which thy mock the poor, yet it’s a tool in their hands. Poor Esau sold his birth right because of hunger. Anyhow, the thing is, the poor man has sense and may just be waiting for his opportunity. The Arab spring, a replay of the spirit of the French Revolution should be instructive to our resource managers to please, in some way give every Nigerian a bite of the cheery and thereby a reason to hope and persevere.
