Suleja prison break: Federal Government pledges to relocate ‘a lot of correctional centres’

Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the interior minister, announced on Thursday that the government would move some prison facilities in order to improve infrastructure, security, and space.

The promise was made by Tunji-Ojo during his visit to the Suleja Medium Security Custodial Centre, where on Wednesday a downpour caused damage to the facility, allowing 119 prisoners to flee.

This is stated in a statement made public in Abuja by Mr. Ozoya Imohimi, the ministry’s director of press and public relations.

The minister declared that moving many of the correctional facilities to more suitable locations was essential.

“This facility was built in 1914 to house 250 inmates; before this incident, we had 499.

This is a testimony to what we keep talking about: the overcrowding of our correctional centres.

“You can look at the environment; it shows that we need to relocate them away from city centres to create better space, better security, and better infrastructure,” he added.

According to him, the ministry is already working behind the scenes to fashion out a correctional system that would work for all.

Tunji-Ojo assured that such incident would not happen again in any other facility across the country.

“This could have been avoided if the right information was disseminated at the appropriate time on the structure.

“I was not appointed to make excuses; I was appointed to take responsibility, and we are not shying away from taking responsibility.

“We will get them back and we will ensure this doesn’t happen again anywhere in the country.”

NAN