COMMAND STRUCTURE OF THE NIGERIAN PRISONS SERVICE

At the apex of this Service sits the Controller-General of the Nigerian Prisons Service.  He is the Chief Executive Officer and is responsible for the formulations and implementation of penal policies in Nigeria.  He is responsible to the President through the Minister of Interior and the Immigration and Prisons Board which the Minister heads.  But in matters of prison policy he takes direct responsibility for policy implementation.

He is assisted by six (6) Deputy Controllers-General (DCGs) who head the six broad administrative divisions called Directorates into which the Service is broken for efficient management.  The Deputy Controller-Generals who head the Directorates report to the Controller-General and constitute together with the Controller-General the highest decision-making body in the Administration of the Nigerian Prisons Service.

The Directorates are specialized divisions charged with the responsibility of coordinating specific areas of prison administration.

They are:

(i)     Operations

(ii)   Administration, Personnel Management, Training and Supplies (APMT&S)

(iii) Health and Social Welfare (H & SW)

(iv) Finance and Budget (F & B)

(v)   Inmates Training and Productivity (ITP)

(vi) Works and Logistics (W & L)

 

THE STRUCTURE OF THE NIGERIAN PRISONS SERVICE

 

THE HEADQUARTERS GENERAL STAFF

 

The Deputy Controllers-General (DCGs) are assisted in the management of these Directorates at the Prisons Headquarters, Abuja by a complement of officers from the Assistant Controllers-General of Prisons (ACGs) to Controllers of Prisons right down to the lowest relevant junior staff

THE ZONAL COMMANDS

For the purposes of close monitoring and supervisions, the thirty-six (36) States including the FCT with their corresponding Prison commands, are grouped into eight zones.  Each Zone is made up of a number of State Commands. The Zones are headed by Assistant Controllers-General of Prisons (ACGs) whose responsibilities are to monitor, supervise and direct the performance of Prisons in the States under their command.  The Zonal heads also called Zonal Coordinators are responsible to the Controller-General of Prisons in their day to day operations and hold their postings at his pleasure. 

THE STATE COMMANDS

All prisons and prison institutions in the States with the exception of the Training Institutions are answerable to the Controllers of Prisons in the States.  To that extent the Controllers supervise the prisons in the State, catering for the administrative needs of the individual prisons including the distribution of stores, the payment of salaries, the maintenance of discipline, the supervision of works, training, medical welfare, logistics and other support services that ensure that the functions of the prisons are performed in the States where the prisons really are.  In fact the State Controller of Prisons to a lesser extent replicates the administrative structure at the Prison Headquarters at the State in far more detail than is done at the Zonal Headquarters.  The reason is that the general assessment of the performance of the Prison is done at the State level where the prison units really are:

The State Controller therefore is assisted by Deputies that correspond more or less to the six broad divisions of the Prisons Headquarters administration except that, in the State this replication is finer in details due largely to the fact that it is in the States that you have the more practical application of Prison regulations.

That is why one could have Deputy Controller (Medical, Welfare, Industry, Agric, Discipline, Administration, Works, Logistics, Health, Nursing, Catering etc.) in the State Headquarters attending to the needs of the administration of the Prison at that level.

THE PRISON UNIT

The last and primary unit of administration in the Prisons Service is the prison.  It could be a convict prison, a farm centre or a Borstal training institute.  At this level, the interaction with the prisoners become more practical and real.  Administering the prisons and organizing the daily lives of the inmates becomes a practical reality.  All relationship with other Agencies of State in so far as prison administration is concerned begin to bear fruit one way or the other in the prison.

The officer in-charge of the Prison is therefore assisted by a complement of deputies and assistants corresponding broadly to the administrative divisions at the headquarters level.  Here they are dealing daily with inmates, the courts, the general public, the churches and the Non-governmental Agencies and other sundry bodies like the Legal Aids Council, the Ministry of Justice etc. that have one or more things to do with the Prison.

At this level, the workshops become practical realities; inmate training and welfare, feeding and Medicare etc. assume a more realistic dimension since the recipients of these programmes are the inmates who are at the level where they are treated according to rules and regulations.

The administrative structures will therefore vary from prison to prison in a more or less hazy fashion.  The Prison Farm Centers and the smaller prisons are bound to be less complex than the Maximum Security Prison for instance.  So will the needs of the Borstal Training Institute vary from the above.  But the underlying features of the goal orientation of the Nigerian Prisons Service must be present in all of them.

Below is the distribution of the Nigerian Prisons' Institutions according to their States and Zonal Commands