Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, says some officers of the Nigeria Correctional Service are responsible for recent jail breaks in the country.
He stated this in on Monday during the decoration of Haliru Nababa as the Controller-General of NCoS, in Abuja.
The minister said the officers smuggled prohibited items to inmates, helped them run criminal operations in custody, took them out to unapproved locations and wittingly or unwittingly facilitated jailbreak for them.
He 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.
“The implication of this is that the custodial facilities will be bursting at the seams with the influx of inmates awaiting trial 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 trial and are now using the security situation in the country as an opportunity to attack our custodial centres and obtain their freedom.”
