NCoS says extortion allegation reported by Premium Times malicious, unfounded

The Nigeria Correctional Service, NCoS, has said that a recent report by Premium Times on extortion of claiming that officials of the service are extorting money from suspects on court remand before admitting them into custody is untrue, malicious and unfounded.

Premium Times had earlier reported that a leaked correspondence to the Controller General of the NCoS, Haliru Nababa by a deputy commissioner of police at the Police Special Fraud Unit Ikoyi, Lagos, Ibrahim Zango, to caution officers of the service fond of requesting for the sums of N10-20, 000 from relatives of suspects on Court remand before they can be received for remand.

But in a communique, the service called on members of the public to disregard the report saying that it is unfounded and written with bad intent.

Public Relations Officer of the Service, (PRO), of the service, Abubakar Umar said “The attention of the Nigerian Correctional Service has been drawn to a report making the rounds in which a senior police officer accused some correctional officials of extorting money before admitting remanded suspects in custody. The Service wishes to inform the public to disregard the said report as it is unfounded, malicious and untrue.

“The report cannot be true as it is best described as a talk show. Suspects are usually escorted from the courts to the custodial facilities by officials of the prosecuting agencies, under whose watch, such admissions are done. The process of admission into a custodial facility starts immediately after the suspect is presented by the official with an accompanying detention warrant from a court of competent jurisdiction. Obviously, it is not practicable to extort money from suspects before admitting them as the report claims,” parts of the communique reads.

The service also said that no reporter from the news medium had reached out to the service’s spokesman for clarification as claimed on the subject matter.

“To set the record straight, no reporter of any news platform contacted the Service on the issue; it is unfortunate that a Premium Times reporter claimed to have called for clarification on the subject matter,” he said.

Umar called on journalists to always seek clarification “on contentious matters” before publication to avoid misleading the public for the betterment of the nation.

He also warned that the “Service will not tolerate falsehood and concoction of news to spread lies and unfounded information, just to mislead the general public.”