The House of Representatives has tasked the Ministry of Interior and the Nigerian Correctional Service on acquisition and installation of Solar Powered Biometric Capturing Devices to enable capture full details of accused persons both convicted and awaiting trial to a alert jailbreaks.
The call was sequel to the adoption of a motion by Rep. Godwin Emeka (LP-Anambra) at plenary on Tuesday.
Moving the motion earlier, Emeka recalled that in 2019, the former President Muhammadu Buhari assented to an Act which changed the name of the Nigerian Prison Service to Nigerian Correctional Service.
He said that since the name was changed to Nigerian Correctional Service which splited the service into Custodial and non-Custodial service, more than 1000 inmates have escaped from the facilities across the country.
According to the lawmaker, these jail breaks are becoming a recurring decimal, a national embarrassment and a security threat to the country.
“In spite of the change in nomenclature, critical infrastructure like provision of Information
and Communications Technology (ICT), Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV), Artificial Intelligence (AI) etc are not provided to meet modern challenges in the security ecosystem.
“We are concerned that the absence of modern technology equipment makes it impossible for the staff of the facilities to account for the number of escapees each time there is a jail break.
“Worried that if urgent steps are not taken to install modern security gadgets and equipment’s, like installation of Solar Powered Biometric Capturing devices for an on the spot capturing of inmates at the point of
admission into the facilities, incessant jail breaks will continue unabated with attendant number of escapees unaccounted for,” he said.
In his ruling, the Speaker of the house, Rep. Tajudeen Abbas mandated the Committees on Reformatory Institutions, Interior and Legislative Compliance to ensure compliance and report within four weeks for further legislative action.
