Prisons officers facilitating jailbreak — Minister

The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, says some officers of the Nigerian Correctional Service smuggle prohibited items to inmates, help them run criminal operations in custody, take them out to unapproved locations and wittingly or unwittingly facilitate jailbreak for them.

He stated this in Abuja on Monday during the decoration of Haliru Nababa as the Controller-General of NCoS.

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The minister said those officers should be fished out as their nefarious activities endangered the nation, other staff and inmates.

“There should be no place for them. There should be zero tolerance for them in the service,” he said.

According to him, when inmates break free from custody, the security of lives and property is in jeopardy.

Aregbesola said there would be an influx of inmates into the custodial centres across Nigeria following the current insecurity.

“The implication of this is that the custodial facilities will be bursting at the seams with the influx of inmates awaiting trials or convicts serving terms and awaiting execution.

“This poses a special challenge in that some of the inmates belong to organisations that’ll deem themselves to be fighting ethno-religious and political causes. Therefore, their members outside will be planning to break into the facilities to free their members.

“There are also sophisticated criminal organisations whose members are either serving terms or awaiting trials and are now using the security situation in the country as an opportunity to attack our custodial centres and obtain their freedom,” he said.