Aregbesola: What government plans to do to inmates amid COVID-19 pandemic
The spread of COVID-19 pandemic across Nigeria is causing panic everywhere, even among inmates, whose movements have always been under tight restrictions before President Muhammadu Buhari’s Sunday evening address ordering cessation of movements in Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Though they have been confined to life within the walls of the correctional centers, the inmates are also jittery about COVID-19 like other Nigerians living freely but confined to their homes. This is why some prisoners at the Kaduna correctional centre in Kaduna state, on Tuesday, attempted a jailbreak over fears of contracting coronavirus.
After their jailbreak attempt was foiled, the inmates staged a protest, demanding that they be released following rumours that an infected person was in the facility.
Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, whose ministry oversees the activities of the correctional centers has, however, revealed the plan of government for the inmates amid COVID-19 fears.
Aregbesola said before the COVID-19 pandemic the government has taken measures to ensure a very high level of hygiene at the prisons, which according to him will minimise infection.
“But with this pandemic, I met with the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Chairman of Presidential Task Force on Prison Decongestion and we all agreed to propose to the President some measures that will relief the correctional centers and the President has approved the recommendations on the measures to take to bring some relief to the overburdened correctional centers,” Aregbesola said at the briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja, on Tuesday.
On the Kaduna jailbreak attempt, Aregbesola said the inmates at the condemned section of the center acted based on fake news that the government is planning to grant amnesty too some inmates in response to COVID-19.
“We have addressed this by debunking the fake information and we are working on appropriate measures to decongest the correctional centers,” the minister said.
