The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has blamed the recent attacks on some correctional facilities in the country on the current insecurity situation.
Aregbesola said this on Thursday, at the special weekly briefing, organized by the Presidential Communication team at the Statehouse Abuja.
He disclosed that over 4,000 inmates have escaped from correctional facilities from 2020 to date, while 954 have been recaptured, with 3,906 still at large.
He said that biometric information of all inmates in all correctional facilities have been captured and are working with the INTERPOL.
The minister explained that government is currently on the trail of some of the attackers of the facility, with a couple of them arrested in Imo State.
He said a ministerial task force will soon be inaugurated, to rearrest all escapees and their collaborators.
On the decongestion of custodial centres, the minister said, construction of modern
3,000 capacity custodial ceareres is ongoing in each of the six geo-political zones of the country, with that of Kano, Karshi (FCT) and Bori in Port Harcourt to be completed by April 2022.
He explained that the ratio of male to female inmates in the custodial centres is 98 to 2 per cent.
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He noted that the total number of inmates is 69, 680 out of which 50, 223 are awaiting trial persons and 19,457 are convicted inmates.
The Interior Minister said the ministry has commenced vulnerability assessment of all custodial facilities, adding that he has also directed that all custodial centres be designated as ‘ National Critical Assets,’ to be protected by officers of the Nigeria Security And Civil Defence Corps.
On the activities of the Nigerian Immigration Service, Aregbesola said the service will in 3 months, set up additional bio-metric capturing centres, to reduce the traffic at the various passport offices nationwide.
He decried the non-collection of passports, saying there are currently over 40,000 uncollected passports by Nigerians.
He added that efforts are on improving the nation’s border security, to check criminal activities.
While speaking on the operations of the Federal Fire Service, FFS, the Minister noted that various reforms are ongoing within the service, to boost their efficiency and response to fire disasters.
Aregbesola said the FFS responded to 698 fire outbreaks in the country in 2019 and 3, 555 in 2020 across the country.
He added that the agency saved 99 lives and 1,100 in 2020, while assets valued at N1.82 trillion were saved.
(Editor: Ifeanyi Mark) (Reporter : Yemi Adebayo)
