The Nigerian Correctional Service says it has reactivated the abandoned Borstal Training Institute Enugu, for the reformation of juvenile offenders in the South-East and South-South geopolitical zones.

The Controller of Corrections and Principal of BTI, Mrs Elizabeth Ezenwanne, made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday in Enugu.

She said the BTI would also admit troublesome juveniles who posed problems to their parents and society for reformation, after their warrants must have been perfected by a court of competent jurisdiction.

She stated that the programme was being rendered at a zero-cost three-year maximum training period.

The controller, however, said the centre was yet to take off due to lack of some vital facilities.

Ezenwanne said the institute was meant for training of those within the ages of 16 and 21, who committed crime, were tried and convicted.

According to her, taking juvenile offenders to adult conventional custodial centres, where hardened criminals are also harboured, is not good for them.

“BTI was created to expose them to education and vocation for those that want to acquire skills. When we join them with adult criminals, they will come out worse persons to society, so to avoid such, the institute came to be,” she said.

She added that although the Enugu Custodial Centre was also affected by the war, it later bounced back, but the institute never did until NCoS Act, 2019 made it mandatory for every state in Nigeria to have separate male and female BTI.

“Our handicap now is non-availability of water supply, electricity, dilapidated staff and principal quarters, absence of buildings for chapel, mosque and clinic.

“Some parents who heard about the school when I featured on a radio programme have been coming here to have their stubborn children admitted. But accepting them where there is no water to take care of their personal hygiene is unfair.

“I have reached out to Nigerians, asking for help to enable me to run this school and I am still pleading as the Federal Government cannot do everything alone,” Ezenwanne said.

She stressed that the school was the only one in the South-East and South-South part of Nigeria, adding that philanthropists from the region should come to their aid to make the institute viable.

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