The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has debunked reports that fleeing inmates from the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Kuje, in Abuja during the attack, stole the sums of N82 million and $36,000 cash belonging to inmates.
The Service Public Relations Officer (SPRO), Abubakar Umar, in a statement today, July 9, said that its personnel didn’t keep such huge sums within custodial facilities.
According to him, all inmates’ cash deposited in the custody of the authorities of the custodial centre was intact and safe.
“There is an existing instruction from the Controller General, NCoS, Mr Haliru Nababa that all officers superintending custodial centres must not keep huge sums in the facility.”
Nababa expressed appreciation to security agencies and patriotic Nigerians whose collaboration was facilitating the recovery, assuring the public of his irrevocable commitment to bringing back all escapees to answer for their crimes.
Some media had reported that personnel at the Kuje Custodial Centre could not account for the sums of N82 million and $36,000 cash belonging to inmates.
Recall that scores of terrorists had, on July 5, launched an attack on the facility, bombing their way in. The terrorists freed 879 inmates, among whom were at least 64 who were detained on terror-related charges.
The Service spokesman said that the clarification of the matter became imperative against the misleading narrative the unfounded information had generated and the diversion of attention from addressing the challenges at stake.