The Nigerian Correctional Service NCoS has dismissed reports that the fleeing inmates from the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Kuje, stole money (local and foreign currencies) belonging to their fellow inmates.

Following consistent media enquiries, Spokesman of the Service, Umar Abubakar in a statement on Saturday explained that its personnel do not keep such huge sums within custodial facilities.

Some reports had alleged that personnel at the Kuje Custodial Centre could not account for the sums of N82 million and $36,000 cash belonging to inmates.

“All Inmates’ cash deposited in the custody of the authorities of the custodial centre is intact and safe as there is an existing instruction from the Controller General of Corrections that all officers superintending custodial centres must not keep huge sums in the facility”, said Abubakar.

He said the clarification became imperative against the misleading narrative and the unpatriotic diversion of attention from addressing the challenges at stake.

“The Controller-General of Corrections, Haliru Nababa is sparing no effort or resources in hunting down all the escapees and it is heart-warming that the integrated strategies are yielding favourable results. He expresses his deep appreciation to security agencies and patriotic Nigerians whose collaboration is facilitating the recovery exercise.

“Nababa assures the public of his irrevocable commitment to bringing back all escapees to answer for their crimes. He therefore appeals that citizens should assist in achieving this task by visiting the Nigerian Correctional Service’s website https://corrections.gov.ng/escapees for the pictures of the escapees and alert the nearest security agency if they suspect or see any of them”, Abubakar added.

(Vanguard)