Rehabilitation Of Youths In-Mates On Drug Related Offences: A Core Value For A Progressive Nation By: Hameed Ajibola Jimoh Esq.

‘Rehabilitation’ according to the Webster online
dictionary, is defined as a verb to mean ‘to bring (someone or
something) back to a normal, healthy condition after an illness,
injury, drug problem, etc. 2. To teach (a criminal in prison) to
live a normal and productive life. 3. To bring (someone or
something) back to a good condition’. This paper
takes a look at the rehabilitation of youths in-mates on drug
related offences as a core value for a progressive nation such as
Nigeria.

Whenever the issue of drug related offences is mentioned, one
relevant law is the National Drug Law Enforcement
Agency Act, CAP N30, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 (as
amended)- which established the National Drug Law
Enforcement Agency-herein after referred to as NDLEA. In this Act,
the highest sentence is life imprisonment while a convict can be
sentenced to some years of imprisonment by the Court. However, what
this paper considers is the need for rehabilitation of the convicts
so that they would not return to the society to commit a further
offence after the first conviction thereby being a second, or third
or more convicts.

Furthermore, section 401(2)(c) of the Administration
of Criminal Justice Act, 2015-herein after referred to as
ACJA- and which is another relevant law governing
drug related offences as a Federal Criminal Law- provides the
guidelines to be followed by a Court thus
‘(2)    In
determining a sentence, the court  shall  have
the following  objectives  in mind, and may
decide in each  case
the  objectives  that  are
more  appropriate   or even
possible:

 (c)    rehabilitation,  that  is,  the  objective  of
providing  the  convict  with
treatment or training that will make him into a reformed
citizen;’. Also, section 416 of the
ACJA has conferred on the Court of law, the power to
deviate and or depart from the years of imprisonment made under a
law including the NDLEA Act and it thus also permits reformatory
sentence in section 416(2)(a) thus
‘416     (1)  On  conviction,  a
court
may  sentence  the  convict  to  a
term  of  imprisonment  as prescribed
by the law. (Underlined word is mine for
emphasis).

(2)    In  exercising  its  discretion  of
sentencing or review  of sentence,  the court
shall take
into consideration  the  following  factors,  in  addition  to  the  provisions  of  section
401 of this Act

(a)    each case shall be
treated  on its own merit;

(b)    the objectives of
sentencing,  including  the principles of
reformation, shall be borne  in mind  in
sentencing a convict;

Therefore, I humbly submit that considering the definitions of
‘rehabilitation’ by the Webster online dictionary
(above), the goal of rehabilitation is to bring such
person back to a normal, healthy condition and a productive life.
But one question that one needs to ask oneself is: to what effect
has been the rehabilitation of some of these inmates in Nigeria? It
is true that the prison service has the sole responsibility of
rehabilitating these inmates. More so, in my humble view, it would
be wrong to send some or any of such persons to the NDLEA (which is
the prosecutor) for rehabilitation, most especially because, there
is a kind of fear that such persons have already about the NDLEA
and rehabilitation might be seen as a torture for the wrong that
they might have been alleged or found guilty to have committed.
Nevertheless, how effective has been this rehabilitation by the
Nigerian Prison Services? Will our society progress where majority
of the youths are in prison custody while the old ones occupy the
major space in the nation? From the several drug cases handled by
me, the respective age of some of these convicts ranges
from: 20, 22, 23, upward.

Furthermore, it is my submission that some of these inmates if
well investigated would have probably been victims of
circumstances, inclusive of bad orientation, bad parenthood, lack
of good counseling and exposure to immoralities and bad influence.
Some of them in my view if actually given the opportunity would be
willing to change to a new and better healthy life.

Also, the drugs that some of these persons are being arrested
for might be: indian hemp, cocaine, LSD, heroine,
etc. So, this act actually causes this nation a great
embarrassment.

I respectfully recommend that the Courts should always consider
the rehabilitation of these convicts as a priority to the
punishment, so that rehabilitation becomes the determinant of the
long years to be given to the convicts by the courts. In this way,
I believe, such person would come out of the prison as an entirely
reformed individual and remorseful that he has done the illegal
act. So, what I am recommending is a situation where assuming a
person is convicted for any of the offences under the NDLEA Act,
such a convict should be mandated to attend a rehabilitation
training at the government’s cost. Also, the Prison services should
put in place, effective and efficient rehabilitation programme.
Though, there might be several trainings in the prisons, for
instance, the Kuje Prison, FCT-Abuja,  which I have visited on
several occasions, nevertheless, the inmates should be mandated to
attend or participate actively in those trainings and or programme
and not voluntarily. If these programme are available, inclusive of
vocational trainings to economically empower the inmates, the Court
should always sentence some of these convicts to a term of years
while directing the Nigeria Prison Services to give them
rehabilitation for either six (months) or more or less, or such
other reasonable periods forming part of the sentence years as the
court may deem fit. In this way, the occasion where some of them
would be sentenced to imprisonment and he is returned after having
been charged with committing second or more offences and then
becomes harden criminal would be avoided.

Furthermore, it is my respectful submission that drugs addiction
is a mother of all crimes in the society. Therefore, counsel who
represent drug suspects or defendants should always consider the
availability of rehabilitation and good counseling for their
clients. Non-governmental organisations too should afford inmates
such required rehabilitation programme in collaboration with the
Nigerian prison services. Parents and guardians too, should take up
their responsibilities of orientation and good up-bringing of their
children and wards for the progress of this nation.

Finally, it is my humble submission that if the issue of
rehabilitation is considered as important by the government and the
individuals, as a tool to achieving progress for this nation, then,
rehabilitation sa core value will be an opportunity to reform our
Nigerian youths who are the hope and furture of this country.

e-mail: hameed_ajibola@yahoo.com^[1]

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