.Warns Nigerians: Don’t attempt to breach our Custodial centres

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: The Federal Government has sanctioned 147 officers of the Nigerian Correctional Service NCoS and ordered the destruction of 1,167 mobile phones recovered from custodial centres across the country, as authorities escalate a crackdown on contraband smuggling into the nation’s prisons.

Controller General of Corrections, Sylvester Ndidi Nwakuche, announced the measures on Tuesday in Abuja during a formal exercise to destroy prohibited items seized from correctional facilities over the last eight months.

The recovered contraband includes Android devices, iPhones, and button phones, along with earpieces, SIM cards, chargers and other unauthorized materials. Cash totalling N2,569,000, smuggled into custodial centres by inmates, was also confiscated and has since been paid into the appropriate government treasury in line with extant financial regulations.

“Their presence within our facilities is unacceptable. They compromise security, disrupt discipline, and create channels through which criminal activities are sustained from within custody”, Nwakuche declared.

The Controller General warned that contraband trafficking could not thrive without internal compromise, and that the 147 staff members already sanctioned were proof that accountability was no longer negotiable.

“Any officer who aids, ignores, or facilitates this act is in direct violation of their oath and a threat to the integrity of this Service. Anyone found culpable will be visited with the full weight of the law, as others before them have already experienced. Be warned”, he declared.

Nwakuche said the problem was not driven by insider complicity alone, pointing to a network of external collaborators — visitors, contractors, and other accomplices — who conceal prohibited items in food, clothing, and personal effects before attempting to smuggle them into the facilities. “This collusion between insiders and outsiders is what we are determined to break — completely and permanently,” he said.

Several individuals have already been apprehended and handed over to the Nigeria Police Force and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency for prosecution, he added.

To intensify enforcement, the Service has established a dedicated Special Crack Team, operating separately from routine security structures, and tasked with intelligence gathering, surveillance and targeted operations.

Nwakuche credited the team’s work, supported by collaboration with sister security agencies, for the volume of recoveries now being destroyed.

Directing attention to the public the CG said; “Do not attempt to breach our systems or influence our personnel. Do not conceal prohibited items in food, clothing, or personal effects. Do not test the integrity of this Service. The consequences will be severe, and enforcement will be uncompromising.”

The Controller General said the smuggling of contraband into custodial centres fuels violence, sustains criminal networks, and in some instances facilitates escape attempts.

“A custodial environment compromised by such activities ceases to serve its purpose,” he said. “It becomes an extension of the very crimes we are mandated to correct. That is a risk we will not permit.”

Nwakuche commended the Interior Minister, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo for his leadership and support to the Service, saying the ministry’s commitment to internal security reforms had been instrumental to the progress recorded.

He described Tuesday’s destruction exercise as part of a sustained effort to restore order and advance the correctional system’s core mandate of reformation, rehabilitation, and reintegration of offenders.