68,901 inmates in all custodial centres- NCoS

The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has disclosed that locked up in custodial centres across the country are 68,901 inmates.

The Service also disclosed that still at large as a result of recent jail invasions were over 3,000 escapees.

Speaking at an interactive session with journalists in Abuja on Friday, the spokesperson of NCoS, Francis Enobore, said rearresting the escaped inmates was an ongoing process.

Enobore said so many of the escaped inmates returned on their own, some were recaptured, while parents and traditional rulers brought back some.

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He noted that as if last count, a total of 68,901 people were kept in Nigerian custodial facilities with those convicted 49,234 (representing 29 percent) and those awaiting trial making up 49,234 or 71 percent.

He said one of the greatest positives from the Nigerian correctional centres was that since the outbreak of COVID-19 last year there had not been a case of infection reported.

He said: “We have procedure put in place to ensure that inmates are screen before getting into the corrections.”

He however appealed to media professionals to report the positive aspect of the correction centres so as to make members of the public well enlighten and better informed of happenings in the facilities across the country.

Enobore said the case of prison invasions was traceable to the limit the society had disintegrated and not because of the fault of the Nigerian Correctional Service.

He said plans were already on the way to fortify the correctional centres against external attacks, adding that some of the centres might be moved out of town in order to put back in place the needed buffer.

He lamented that urbanization had led to the losing of the buffer for most correctional centres and was responsible for the growing attacks on centres across the country.