The federal government has ordered the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) to evacuate inmates from its Abeokuta facility within four weeks because of the poor sanitary conditions there.

The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Interior, Dr. Magdalene Ajani, gave the directive during the third public hearing of the Independent Investigative Panel on Alleged Corruption and Other Violations Against the NCoS, held in Abuja on Monday. She described conditions in the custodial facility as “horrible” and stressed the urgency of intervention. “We can’t put up the pictures of what we saw there — horrible. So, it’s an urgent thing that needs to be done,” she said.

Dr. Ajani, who doubles as the chairperson of the panel, also issued a stern directive to the NCoS to submit a comprehensive status report on juvenile custodial centres across the country within two weeks. She cited deep concerns over illegal detention of minors, the mingling of juveniles with adult inmates, poor inmate welfare, and administrative failures across the correctional system.

“You are going to send to the ministry the status report of all the borstal centres that have been completed or not, requisited or not. We need to be serious with what we are doing. When we visited about 28 states’ custodial centres, we found out that you don’t lump underage with adults,” she told officials of NCoS.

She also raised the alarm over the status of the Ilorin facility, reportedly operating as a “borstal” or halfway home, and housing adults far beyond the appropriate age group.

“Whether it’s a borstal institute or a halfway home, it must be clearly defined. The situation where you have 30 to 43-year-olds in a booster home or halfway home is not acceptable, and a lot of transactions are going on,” she said.

The panel ordered the immediate removal of all adults not meant to be in such facilities.

Also speaking, the Panel’s Secretary, Uju Agomoh, highlighted the wide scope of the panel’s mandate, which includes investigation of corruption, torture, cruel and degrading treatment of inmates, and systemic lapses within correctional institutions.

Agomoh said, “The panel will be poised to bring in a kind of report that will make Nigeria have the kind of Nigerian Correctional Service that we want to become.”

In September 2024, the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, had suspended several officers overseeing the Maximum and Minimum Custodial Centres in Kirikiri, Lagos State, following allegations of misconduct involving the handling of cross-dresser Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky.

Consequently, he set up an investigative panel to unravel the veracity of the preferential treatment of Bobrisky, among other issues concerning the NCoS. (Daily Trust)