Oduduwa News

The Nigerian Correctional Centre in Ado-Ekiti is bursting at the seams, says its prison controller, Ojo Olayemi.

The prison controller disclosed this while conducting the Ekiti Chief Judge, John Adeyeye, round the facility.

The chief judge freed 69 awaiting trial inmates at the prison.

Mr Olayemi explained that the facility was designed to house less than 400 inmates but had almost been overstretched by accommodating about 700 inmates.

He urged the judge to encourage Magistrates to use non-custodial sentences, such as community services, which will drastically help decongest prisons.

Mr Adeyeye granted the inmates freedom on Thursday, during his first official visit to the prison in Ado Ekiti since assumption of duty in June.

The freed inmates were convicted of burglary and stealing and had stayed in prison beyond the stipulated jail terms.

Five hundred and thirty-eight cases were reviewed, 11 females and 527 males.

Also, 45 inmates were released unconditionally, 19 were released on bail, four were released on the advice of the director of public prosecutions for having no case to answer, one case was struck out, and three bail conditions were varied.

The chief judge advised the freed inmates to be of good behaviour.

Mr Adeyeye commended stakeholders in the administration of justice, especially the judges, magistrates, lawyers, police and others, for their patient and cooperation.

He also lauded the controller and his men for keeping a clean and healthy environment, making the facility conducive for the inmates.

Mr Olayemi thanked the judge for the timely visit, adding that the visit would immensely alleviate the suffering of the inmates.

He appealed to Mr Adeyeye to make his visit a regular exercise.

Operatives of the Ogun State Police Command have arrested the father and mother of a one-month-old baby for selling the baby to another woman for N50,000.

The couple was arrested on Thursday at Ilara area of Ode Remo, in Remo North Local Government Area of Ogun State.

Abimbola Oyeyemi, the state police command spokesperson confirmed the development to Journalists on Sunday, December 19, 2021.

According to him, Onyebuchi Eze and his wife, Oluchi Eze were arrested apprehended following information received by officers at Ode Remo divisional headquarters, that the couple, who live at Ayegbami street, Ilara Remo, had “willingly sold their one-month-old baby to a woman” now at large.

Consequently, the DPO of Ode Remo, CSP Olayemi Fagbohun, was said to have detailed his detectives to the area and got the suspects arrested.

On interrogation, Oyeyemi revealed that the suspects confessed that “one Mrs Ruth Obajimi directed the yet-to-be-identified buyer to them” on December 14.

“They stated further that the woman told them that she is from the human rights office and that she will help them to foster their child.

“The woman then gave them the sum of N50,000 and they handed over the baby to her despite not knowing her from Adam,” the police image maker said, adding that efforts are being geared towards apprehending the said woman to recover the baby.

Meanwhile, the State Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, had directed that the couple be immediately transferred to the anti-human trafficking and child labour unit of the state CIID for further investigation.

Bankole also ordered a massive manhunt for the buyer of the baby.

A suspected container laden with arms has been intercepted by the Tin Can Island Area Command of the Nigerian Customs Service.

The suspected cargo was discovered in one of the terminals under the command during a routine examination

The Public Relations Officer of the Tin Can Island Area Command, Uche Ejesieme, confirmed the arrest.

“The interception was made during routine examination on Friday,” he said.

“Following this development, the command intimated the terminal operators and requested that the suspected container be transferred to our enforcement unit for 100% examination.”

He noted that further information on facts and figures are still sketchy, adding that comprehensive information would be made available after the 100% examination after which the command will make an official pronouncement.

The latest seizure is coming days after the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, asked police commanders and officers to brace up to the anticipated internal security challenges that the year 2022 will present.

IGP Baba had explained that 2022 would be very challenging because it precedes the 2023 general elections and the Force would be confronted with the management of threats associated with an active political space.

Yoruba Nation campaigner, Sunday Adeyemo, also known as Sunday Igboho, may have been trapped in a prison in neighbouring Benin Republic, having spent exactly five months in detention since his arrest around 8pm on July 19, 2021, at the Cadjèhoun Airport in Cotonou.

Also, the Cour De’appal De Cotonou since the arraignment of Igboho on July 27, 2021, has not sat, fuelling speculations that the detention of Igboho is laced with political undertones.

His continued incarceration has also doused Yoruba Nation agitations in the last five months as his followers and associates have laid low, suspending secessionist rallies as was done in the South-West before the near-perpetual ordeal of the agitator.

Igboho’s mentor in the struggle, who is also an arrowhead for self-determination, Banji Akintoye, had since left Nigeria for Benin Republic after he got wind that the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), plotted his arrest.

The 86-year-old professor of history has not returned to Nigeria.

The Buhari regime in 2021 turned maddening heat on separatist agitators and descended on their arrowheads including Igboho who agitated for the South-West to pull out of the Nigerian State over perceived injustice and insecurity.

On July 1, 2021, around 2am, the Department of State Services stormed the Ibadan residence of Igboho in a Gestapo style, killing two of his associates and arresting 12 others.

The luxury cars and the house of the agitator in the Soka area of Oyo State were also riddled with bullets.

The DSS subsequently declared Igboho wanted for allegedly stockpiling arms to destabilise Nigeria under the pretext of secessionist agitation, an allegation he had since denied.

After about three weeks underground, Igboho, 49, found his way to Cotonou and planned to escape to Germany through an Air France Cotonou-Paris-Hamburg flight but the trip was botched as the Interpol at the airport arrested him and his German-citizen wife, Ropo.

The Beninese Government subsequently arraigned the agitator before the Cour De’appal De Cotonou on migration-related offences and for gunrunning but the court on July 27, 2021, ordered that Ropo be released while Igboho be remanded in prison.

Ropo, it was gathered, now shuttles between Germany where her children are based and Cotonou where her husband is being detained.

The court has not opened the case since then and all efforts by Igboho’s lawyers both in Nigeria and Benin Republic have not yielded in his release as the Buhari regime’s representatives in the Francophone West African country led by Nigerian Ambassador to the Republic of Benin, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai (retd.), continued to push for the extradition of the agitator.

Speaking with journalists, the spokesperson for Akintoye, Maxwell Adeleye, said the Yoruba self-determination group, Ilana Omo Oodua, led by the renowned scholar was optimistic that Igboho would be released.

“Benin Republic Government will soon toe the path of reasoning. We are hopeful that logic will prevail and Igboho will be released to go anywhere he wants to go because he has not committed any offence against the people of Nigeria and the Benin Republic,” he said.