A total of 3,906 inmates who escaped from various custodial centres in the country are still at large, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has revealed.
Appearing at a media briefing organised by the Presidential Media Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday, he said a total of 4,860 inmates escaped from the centres from 2020 till date.
Out of this, he said, 954 have been recaptured. According to him, the biometrics of all custodial inmates in the country have been taken, which he said will enable the escapees to be tracked and rearrested.
He said: “How long can they continue to run from the state? The state is a patient bird. You can run but you can never hide.
We have their biometrics. Whenever and wherever they appear to transact any business, their cover will be blown.”
He added: “I will like to inform Nigerians that we have captured the biometric information of all inmates in the facilities of NCoS working in partnership with the Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
Therefore, we have the capacity and are tracking all escapees from our facilities. In addition, we are working with and have shared the details of escapees with INTERPOL, to check the risks of cross border movements.”
Aregbesola also said that 465 inmates are running various degree programmes around the country, adding that 85 of these are running postgraduate programmes including four who are doing PhD programmes.
He said 560 inmates have been enrolled for WAEC/NECO examinations while 2,300 are enrolled for Adult Literacy classes in several custodial centres.
The minister announced that since the outbreak of Covid-19 in the country, not a single case has been recorded in the custodial centres.
In response to the recent collapsed multi-storey building in Ikoyi, Aregbesola said the Federal Fire Service (FFS) did not shirk their responsibility as they did their best in the salvage operation.
He said the FFS were the first responders at the site and did their utmost in the circumstance.
