...Tasks Aregbesola to sit up or….

By Dirisu Yakubu

Ace rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has taken  swipe at the Federal Ministry of Interior, over what it called the ministry’s poor supervision of correctional centres which in the past few years, led to breakdown of prison centres across the country.

This is as the group said it could no longer keep quiet “as the integrity of the Nigerian prisons is being systematically eroded and breached thereby creating rooms for prisoners to escape the long arm of the law with the attendant consequences to the national security interest of the nation.”

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, Tuesday, national coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko said the group has carried out an investigation to ascertain the “the cause of the lethargic leadership incapacitation in the parent federal ministry with mandate to administer the Nigerian Correctional Centres and the findings are what we have tabled as a petition to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to demand that the federal minister of Interior be compelled to sit up and work or be booted out to stop further compromises of the integrity of the Prison system in the country.”

In a petition addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari, HURIWA accused Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola of deploying security agents in Osun state for quick political gains, rather than focusing on securing correctional centres in the land. 

The petition read in part: “We, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA wishes to draw the attention of the Nigerian President; His Excellency; Muhammadu Buhari to the clear and unambiguous symptom of a failed leadership in the Ministry of Interior due to political distraction on the side of the Minister; Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and the need for the Minister to be called to order or asked to quit and face local Osun State politics.

“It is worrisome that in the face of the implications of the successful and attempted jailbreaks reported across the country in the last eighteen months, which have been adjudged to be the highest so far in the cycle of any administration since the return to civil rule in 1999, the Interior Minister; Rauf Aregbesola appears more concerned with allegedly misusing the personnel of the security agencies under his Ministry for political gains in Osun State rather than fully deploy them appropriately where they are needed to secure the correctional centres that are the cornerstone of Nigeria’s judicial system.

“HURIWA has observed on a weekly basis, particularly on Thursdays, that armed men from the correctional services and those of the Nigeria Civil and Security Defense Corps, NSCDC, are stationed at the venues where The Osun Progressives, TOP, a caucus of the Osun State All Progressives Congress suspected to be loyalists of Rauf Aregbesola who are laying claims to the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state hold their meetings.
“Again, reports have it that on Saturday, August 14, this group, alongside some suspected political thugs under the protection of the armed men from the NSCDC allegedly attacked the state secretariat of the All Progressive Congress, wherein some persons were reportedly injured in the process.

“Also, on the 16th of October, 2021 while the State APC held it’s state congress at the Osogbo Stadium where all heads of security agencies in the state and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC were present, only the NSCDC personnel and its leadership were reportedly absent for no other reason but political manipulation. Instead, they reportedly went to another part of the state to provide cover for alleged Aregbosola’s political loyalists who also claim to be holding a state congress.

READ ALSO: HURIWA petitions Buhari over frequent prison breaks

“In fact, NSCDC men were seen on national television wielding weapons and standing behind the former State Secretary of the party; Alhaji Rasaq Salinsile, who announced himself as the chairman of the party in the state on a day NSCDC personnel ran riot and shot ceaselessly and sporadically into the air in the Ogo Oluwa axis of the state capital, causing avoidable panic in the state.

“More worrisome is that there are indications of clear communications gaps between the Office of the Commandant General and the Minister`s Office for the deployment of tactical and combatant teams of NSCDC to all Correctional Centers in Nigeria, which was allegedly declined by the Minister.”

Referencing the Establishment Act of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps (2003), which empowers the para-military agency to function in the “enhancement of security network and formation within the country, so as to develop structures and training strategies that would contribute to the national security with a broader vision to put to work efficiency in service delivery with a fresh zeal; bring credibility into concept of security,” the group said Aregbesola’s action so far “has portrayed him as a man not worthy of holding a public office of such national strategic and security importance.”

HURIWA noted that the petition to call the Minister to order is germane “owing to the fact that every jailbreak portends the release of possible arsonists, murderers, assassins, armed robbers, kidnappers, rapists, terrorists, and all manner of criminals that make the society a dangerous place to live in.”

Vanguard News Nigeria