Aregbesola Begs NIMC, NCC To Help Track Escapees Of Kuje, Other Prisons

The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola has pleaded with the National Identification Management Commission (NIMC) and the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) to assist in the identification and recapturing of the fleeing inmates from the Kuje Correctional Service.

Aregbesola made this plea while reacting to questions from State House correspondents on Thursday.

His assertion was against the background of a lack of substantial information on the data of recaptured inmates over six months after terrorists attacked the Kuje Medium Correctional Facility and freed at least 60 of its members in July, last year.

Aregbesola stated that the ministry has made efforts by ensuring that all inmates across its facilities are captured biometrically, and is still collaborating with other agencies to recapture the inmates.

He said, “As of today there is no single inmate of our facility that is not captured biometrically, and that is the best we can do. We are still working on DNA which is another way of identifying them.

“We have met with all agencies and institutions that can use the biometrics to trail and help us arrest them. They are doing their best but the most effective agency in capturing those that escaped from the facility is still the police force and they are doing wonderfully well.

“The technology that will help us get the inmates is not as effective as we expect,
but we can only tell the people that they can only run, they cannot hide because they cannot change their biometrics, whenever they come out they will be exposed and therefore arrested if they have not died.

“None of the inmates in our facilities is without biometrics and we have begged other agencies to help us. NIMC should help us, NCC should help us, they are the service providers. If you have your biometrics, you are exposed.

“So, it is our collective efforts, but if we are all committed to it, we will get them back. But all I can say is that they can only run but they cannot hide.”

The Minister further said Nigeria is experiencing an increase in insecurity and jailbreaks are a fallout of the menace.

“We are doing the best we can to ensure that, it will be difficult for anybody to attack our facilities. You may not know that some have attempted and we have sent them back to their maker and it is no longer game as usual” he said.

Recall that THE WHISTLER reported plans by the NCoS to train over 10,000 officers to use high-capacity firearms to prevent attacks across its facilities.