Ihedioha plans juvenile courts in Imo State

Immigration begins migrant e- registration

Disturbed by scores of juvenile cases in Imo State, Governor Emeka Ihedioha has directed the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Ndukwe Nnawuchi (SAN), to review relevant laws, including looking into the possibility of establishing juvenile courts.

There are 48 juvenile inmates in the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), Owerri.Ihedioha gave the directive at the NCS, Owerri Custodian Centre, during the opening of a three-day event themed ‘Save Them Young Re-Orientation And Reformation Programme for Juvenile Offenders’, organised by the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the Governor on Information and Advocacy Ms. Adaora Onyechere.

The governor promised to reform juvenile offenders and reintegrate them. In her speech, Onyechere said that reformation and reorientation were the required approaches to offences committed by juveniles.In another vein, the state’s command of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has commenced migration e-registration exercise in the 27 councils of the state.

The flag -off culminated in the inauguration of the Migration Registration Work station platform.Performing the flag off, the Assistant Comptroller General in charge of Zone E, Sadiq Shehuri, disclosed that the exercise would see to the capture of visitors staying for more than 90 days, including residents and nationals within the Economic Community of African States (ECOWAS).

According to him, the only people exempted are persons under the age of 18, those on diplomatic assignments and migrants staying less than 90 days in the state.The command’s comptroller of the state command of the NIS, David Ringshum, said the exercise was free of charge, urging the migrants to take advantage of the opportunity.Ringshum, however warned that any irregular migrant still in the country after the window of amnesty extended to unregistered migrants by the president on January 11, 2020 would face the full wrath of the law.

Meanwhile, the deputy governor, Gerald Irona, has denied slapping any person or lawmaker.He said that viral social media messages accusing him of such was a deliberate effort by his opponents to smear his image.In a statement yesterday by his Senior Special Assistant (Media and Communications), Dr. Walter Duru, the number two citizen described the message as an infantile lie.

The statement read: “The report is not only untrue, but a deliberate effort by mischief-makers and enemies of the state to present our darling deputy governor in bad light.“The purveyors of this tale failed to mention the location, when and how such an incident occurred.“While some say it happened in a State Executive Council (SEC) meeting, others say the incident occurred in the chambers of the House of Assembly. Some have even mentioned the name of Hon. Uche Ogbuagu, representing Ikeduru, as the one allegedly assaulted.”