alder case study

With the wave of reform of national parastatals in Nigeria, the Nigerian Prison Services approached Alder to advise on the reform and organisational restructuring of the Nigerian Prison Services, in 2006.

The Nigeria Prisons Service is charged with running and maintaining prisons in Nigeria. The service is also responsible for the custody, training and rehabilitation of inmates as well as the administration of prison enterprises such as prison farms.

Prisons are regulated at the Federal level which means that no state (i.e. province) has the legal basis to operate or maintain prisons.

Before developing a programme for the Prison Service, it was important to fully understand the issues facing the prison system.

Some of these issues are:

Process inefficiency in the working relationship between the judicial system and the
prison service. E.g. Slow, protracted trials often cause congestion in prisons

Conflict between the prison’s traditional functions and its offshoot enterprises e.g.
Prison Farms

The dire need to upgrade prison facilities

The reform of the Nigerian Prison Service (NPS) began with a spot survey of public perception of the Nigerian prison system.

After a presentation of the results (and the key issues) was made to the Reform Management Team of NPS, the focus of the organisation was redefined to better mirror its mandate.

During sessions with the team, the vision, mission and core values were defined. The organogram was subsequently redesigned to suit imperatives and ineffective programmes were restructured.

The new organisational structure was presented to the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) for implementation.