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The policy of rejecting new inmates into the country’s Correctional Centres to avoid infection of the old inmates has been condemned by a group, Human Rights Defenders of Nigeria(HURIDE).
HURIDE which decried the policy action, said it has swelled the already congested Police cells all over the country.
The chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT), HURIDE, Dede Uzor A. Uzor and its Publicity Secretary, Elder Charles Ebilite in a statement weekend in Onitsha, said the policy antagonizes the fight to reduce the spread of COVID-19 across Nigeria.
He said the Police facilities even before the pandemic, was already congested with suspects and now that every suspect is kept in Police cells, even those already arraigned in Court, it needs no saying that Police facilities all over the country would have become a hotbed for the spread of the virus and other infections.
He said: “the situation reports they gathered from Police cells all over the country indicates that virtually all the cells in the country are filled beyond their capacities, thus posing serious danger of the suspects contracting the disease.”
The group argued that Correctional Centres are more equipped to take care of these suspects both in manpower and facilities, suggesting that before they accept fresh inmates, test should be conducted on the inmates to ascertain their health status.
Those who test positive for COVID-19 should be quarantined within the Correctional Centre.
Against this backdrop, the group called on the Federal Government and the Ministry of Interior to provide at least one Correctional Centre in each State with testing kits, and isolation centre to take care of new inmates.
“The practice of turning suspects back to Police cell should be discontinued” they said.
The President had in his address to the nation directed that the judiciary should release those inmates with minor offence as a way of decongesting Correctional Centres.
Some State Chief Judges had since carried out this directive, while some especially in the South East States have observed it in breach.
The group therefore called on the Chief Judges of the 36 State and Abuja, who have not carried out the exercise to decongest Correctional Centres in the States to do so.
The group appealed to state Chief Judges that the decongestion of Correctional Centres should be a continuous exercise until the pandemic is wiped out.
The group also called the Inspector General of Police (IG), to enforce the decongestion of Police cells by ordering the immediate and continuous release of person with minor cases.
