Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has held a meeting with the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), on steps to be taken to ensure the decongestion of correctional centres (formerly prisons) in Nigeria.
This is coming three days after inmates at the Kaduna Correctional Centre attempted a jailbreak following the global outbreak of Coronavirus.
The meeting was also attended by the Chief Judge of FCT, Justice I.U Bello.
“Minister of Interior, Ogbeni @raufaregbesola held a midnight meeting on the process and procedure to radically decongest @CorrectionsNg’s custodial centres with AGF and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Chief Judge of FCT, Justice I.U Bello and other government officials,” a tweet by the Ministry of Interior reads.
I held a midnight meeting on the process and procedure to radically decongest @CorrectionsNgâs custodial centres with Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Chief Judge of FCT, Justice I.U Bello and other government officials. pic.twitter.com/EsoisGTs38
— Rauf Aregbesola (@raufaregbesola) April 3, 2020
The minister has previously held similar meetings to deliberate on how to manage the custodial centres.
Recall that five inmates at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre died of electrocution, which investigation by the Controller-General of the Nigeria Correctional Service, Ja’afaru Ahmed, revealed that the incident was due to overpopulation of the correctional centre.
Civil society organisations are also calling on the government to ensure the decongestion of correctional centres and police cells to contain the spread of the virus.
Currently, the country has 74,127 inmates in 244 centres across the country with 52,226 awaiting trial.
