Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has called for immediate decongestion of all the Correctional Centres in the country as a measure to ensure that the Coronavirus disease, otherwise known as COVID-19 does not find its way into any of the Centres.

Ogbeni Aregbesola made the call during an emergency meeting held in his office in Abuja on how to manage the Custodial Centres of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

He stated that the meeting was conveyed in response to the outcome of the Presidential Task Force meeting on COVID-19, noting that the safety of inmates, staff of the Nigeria Correctional Service and all Nigerians was of great concern to Government.

The Minister emphasised that the nation was in an extraordinary situation which requires all hands to be on deck in order to ensure that the pandemic does not go into any of the Custodian Centres.

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Aregbesola therefore called on the AGF and MoJ, States CJs, Governors and other stakeholders to immediately identify measures to be taken for quick decongestion of the custodial centres across the country as a way of preventing the spread of COVID-19 at the Centres.

According to him, the number of those in the Custodial Centres across the country calls for quick response, as they are more vulnerable to infection, adding that the situation is further compounded by the huge number of Awaiting Trial Persons (ATPs) which accounts for over 70% of the national inmates’ population in the nation’s holding facilities.

He called for an urgent need to find a way of trying the cases of the ATPs in the country to overcome the challenge of space in order to reduce the possibility of the virus getting into the facilities.

Earlier, CG CorrectionsNg, Ja’afaru Ahmed said Nigeria has a total of 244 Custodial centres, 139 of which are main Custodial Centres & 85 as Satellite Centres with a total of 74,127 inmates, among which 1,450 are female, 21, 901 Convicted and 52,226 Awaiting Trial.

The Controller General added that overcrowded facilities posed a serious threat to the inmates at this time of the outbreak of COVID-19 Pandemic, if adequate steps are not taken to address the situation.

In his remarks, the MoJ & AGF, Abubakar Malami called for proper profiling of all inmates in the various facilities across the country with a view to having a Joint arrangement with the Governors and States’ Chief Judges for speedy trial of Awaiting Trial Inmates which constitute the largest population at the Custodial Centres across the country.

On his own part, the CJ of the FCT, Ishaq Bello called for constitutional amendment to remove CorrectionsNg from the exclusive legislative list to concurrent list, for easy ACJS and as a necessary measure for decongestion of Custodial facilities across the nation.

Part of the resolutions of the meeting was a call on President Muhammadu Buhari to request the State Governors to visit the Custodial Centres in their states with the Chief Judges and State Attorney Generals, so as to consider and grant amnesty to deserving inmates.

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