Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the Minister of Interior, has announced that the Federal Government has begun an audit of inmates in the country’s 256 custodial centres.
According to him, this was part of a decongestion plan for the facilities. According to the Minister’s Media Assistant, Alao Babatunde, Tunji-Ojo revealed this after inspecting the ongoing 3,000-capacity Maximum Security Custodial Centre in Janguza, Kano State, as well as the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Kuje, Abuja.
According to reports, the federal government carried out a similar procedure in its detention centres across the country.
Speaking at the site inspection, the minister was quoted as saying, “The audit is ongoing, but the good thing for me is that we did a facility audit earlier, and we can see that the result of the facility audit is how we are intervening.
“So, we are very empirical and scientific in our approach. We don’t just throw solutions at unknown problems. We discover the problems; we know the root cause of issues; then we find solutions to them.”
Tunji-Ojo mentioned that an empirical method was being deployed to carry out the audit, adding that the audit would result in massive decongestion of the prisons.
He said, “So, the audit system is being empirical. It is scientific, and that will lead massively to the decongestion of our custodial centers. It is not just saying you want to decongest. It is about you knowing the status. Life is all about data. Data is the new oil.
“Data is the blood of life in this millennium. The audit is going on, and by the time we are done with the audit, you will see the level of decongestion that we will have as a result of the audit. So, we are just being empirical.”
At the Kuje facility, Tunji-Ojo was gifted three books authored by one of the inmates who had been in the correctional centre for 12 years.
