The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has said that the nation’s custodial facilities are well secured, noting that the government has taken all necessary measures to make them impregnable to intruders.
The minister made the assertion while fielding questions from journalists during the review of the 2021 third and fourth quarter performance of the ministry and its paramilitary agencies yesterday in Abuja.
Responding to allegations that some high profile inmates at the Kuje custodial centre in Abuja were being lodged in nearby hotels and not in the custodial facility, Aregbesola described the allegations as quite worrisome.
He, however, averred that custodial facilities across the country were well secured, saying it was impossible to lodge any inmate in any hotel instead of a custodial facility.
“I have said it repeatedly that all that we must do to make our custodial facilities impregnable have been done. However, the allegations you raised are so worrisome that I want to even appeal to the press to investigate when you hear anything.
“How is it possible for an inmate in the custodial facility to live in an hotel? It is simply impossible; so the answer is that that allegation is false,” he said.
According to him, even though development has come close to some custodial centres including that of Kuje, “there is a minimum setback between all custodial centres and any human development and I want to believe that is observed even in the Kuje Custodial facility and in all of our other facilities and where for whatever reason that is not yet fully enforced, we are going to enforce it.”
Giving a scorecard on the performance of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), the minister described it as the most performing paramilitary agency, adding that it has developed some innovations and strategies that have yielded result in protecting the public and critical infrastructure in the country.
He specifically commended the establishment of the corps’ female squad.
While assuring of better service delivery in passports processing by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), he said most of the challenges and problems faced during passport processing emanate from the applicants because of faulty data imputation and other errors.
He said: “The operations of the Federal Fire Service (FFS), grew from 14 states and FCT before this administration to the 36 states of the federation, all of them equipped with modern fire-fighting equipment.”
In his speech, Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr. Shuaib Belgore, said the quarterly review was conducted by the ministry to identify gaps, challenges and areas of improvement through an assessment of its performance and agencies under it, using key performance indicators provided by the Federal Government for internal security.
“It is expected that the discussions at this meeting will further identity gaps of implantation of programmes and policies that are being implemented,” he said.
