The Nigerian Correctional Service, NCoS, and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security have launched a new initiative aimed at transforming prison farms across the country into productive agricultural and vocational hubs.
The development, formalised during a strategic meeting on Friday in Abuja, marks a key step in aligning correctional rehabilitation with Nigeria’s food security objectives under President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
The Controller-General of the NCoS, Sylvester Nwakuche, led a delegation to the Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, to initiate the collaboration.
Nwakuche emphasised that the Correctional Service operates more than 18 farm centres nationwide, but many are in disrepair, with obsolete equipment and poor productivity.
The goal, he said, is to modernise these centres to provide inmates with practical agricultural skills while boosting food production.
“We want to achieve food self-sufficiency in our facilities and generate commercial surplus through this partnership,” Nwakuche stated. “Our farms can become centres of productivity, rehabilitation, and reintegration, in line with our custodial and non-custodial mandate.”
In addition to farming, Nwakuche highlighted other rehabilitation programmes, including partnerships with the National Open University of Nigeria, through which inmates have earned first degrees, master’s, and even doctoral qualifications.
Vocational training in carpentry, tailoring, baking, and horticulture are also available in correctional centres.
He appealed for the Ministry’s technical support and provision of inputs such as fertilisers, improved seedlings, and mechanised tools to revitalise the farm centres and keep inmates meaningfully engaged.
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Responding, Senator Abdullahi welcomed the initiative and commended the NCoS for taking a proactive approach to reform.
He described the Correctional Service’s new image as a testament to the effectiveness of the Correctional Service Act, which he helped develop during his time in the National Assembly.
“Inclusivity is at the heart of the Tinubu administration. Inmates must not be excluded from national development,” he said. “Peace and prosperity cannot thrive without bringing everyone along.”
Abdullahi noted that security had improved in former hotspots such as Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State, making large-scale farming viable again.
He also recalled how, as a lecturer at the University of Agriculture in Makurdi, he often passed correctional service-owned farmland along the Lafia-Akwanga road—an indicator of the NCoS’s underutilised agricultural potential.
He confirmed that the Ministry had already identified NCoS, the Nigerian Army, and the NYSC as key partners in ramping up food production.
“It is encouraging that the Correctional Service took the first step. We will respond with full support—training, machinery, and agricultural inputs,” he assured.
NAN
