By Peter Onyekachukwu 
By Peter Onyekachukwu
A corps member serving in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Lazarus Nzimiro, has donated drugs and other relief items including; foods, recycled clothes, toiletries, personal effects, disinfectants, foot wears, detergents, drugs and basic medical supplies to inmates of the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Okaka, Bayelsa State.
Nzimiro, who is serving at the Corporate Communications Department of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), made the donation as part of his Community Development Service.
Speaking during the donation of the items at the weekend, Nsimiro, pleaded with the Bayelsa State Government, the Ministry of Interior and the Federal Government to support a prison‑rehabilitation initiative he is championing through his Lazarus Nsimiro Foundation.
According to him, his pet project ‘Project Beyond the Walls’ seeks to give succour to prison inmates who are most time abandoned by society.
He said: “When I was a student at the Department of Political Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, I had a classmate who was the CEO of Medichi Homes, and that was the first time I visited prison, and that gave me a more broader perspective of the challenges inmates are having.
“It made me to know that there are people who are here who need to know that in as much as they are here, people out there care about them, that is why i started this Project ‘Beyond the Walls’ to give them that mindset
“That in as much as they are here, they can actually dream to achieve somethings beyond this walls and this just the first phase of a two phase project initiative, our aim is to have a literacy and chess centre established not just here in Medium Security Custodian Centre, Okaka, Yenagoa but other prisons in the country.” He said.
He explained that the initiative’s first phase involves establishing a literacy and chess centre at the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Okaka, Yenagoa and also envisioned similar centres in correctional facilities nationwide, drawing on models such as Brazil’s 2012 prison‑rehabilitation programme.
Also speaking, the Bayelsa State Coordinator of National Youth Service Corps, NYSC Mrs. Obiageli Charity Okpelifo commented Mr. Lazarus Nsimiro for embarking on an initiative that would make a lasting impact of the community especially the inmates of the Medium Security Custodian Centre Okaka Bayelsa State.
Represented by the Head of CDS, Mrs. Kossy Ifekudu, Okpelifo, she enjoined other Corps members to emulate Nsimiro whose project aimed to positively touch lives.
Officer in Charge of the Medium Security Custodian Centre Okaka, ACC Ogundare Rasheed, represented by Chief Superintendent of Corrections, Mohammed Mustafa, commended Nsimiro for bringing hope to the inmates and pledged to ensure the the items provided are judiciously utilised.