Interior Minister: FG May Relocate Ikoyi Prison 

Ikoyi Prison and a few other correctional facilities are scheduled to be relocated from the country’s urban areas to other locations, according to the Federal Government.

Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the Interior Minister, revealed this on Politics Today on Channels Television.
The minister said urbanisation has eaten into the setbacks that ought to be around correctional centres in the country.

Tunji-Ojo said, “Under this administration, we’ve not had any jail attacks; what we’ve had was force majeure, which was Suleja, because that particular correctional centre was built in 1914. It’s about 110 years old.

“President Tinubu was not president 110 years ago. He inherited 256 correctional centres that needed attention. There is no way he would have completely overhauled it in one year.

“I must talk about urbanisation. Look at Suleja for example; the Suleja correctional centre that came down was only 7 metres away from the next house. Instead of what the law says, which is a buffer space of 100 metres, urbanisation has eaten deep.

“Look at Ikoyi Correctional Centre sharing a fence with another house. What’s a correctional centre doing in Ikoyi? This administration is looking at being able to initiate the process of possibly relocating some of these correctional centres.”

He said that the government will soon start an “inmate audit” of all 256 correctional facilities in the nation in order to sanitise them by releasing inmates who had no business being there in the first place.

The minister stated that although President Bola Tinubu inherited a large number of old correctional facilities that require maintenance, the administration has begun to restore and renovate a portion of Nigeria’s prison system.