From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has assured that prisoners’ cash (foreign and local) in the custody of authorities are intact and were not stolen by fleeing inmates.
This is against a report that fleeing inmates stole all the money deposited by inmates.
In a statement, the National Public Relations Officer of the service, Umar Danlami Abubakar, reiterated that 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.
This clarification, according to Abubakar, becomes imperative against the misleading narrative the unfounded information has generated and the unpatriotic diversion of attention from addressing the challenges at stake.
He said that 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 expressed his deep appreciation to security agencies and patriotic Nigerians whose collaboration is facilitating the recovery exercise.
Nababa, the statement noted, assured the public of his irrevocable commitment to bringing back all escapees to answer for their crimes.
He, therefore, appealed 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.