The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola has given a matching order to the Nigerian Correctional Service to ensure all fleeing inmates wherever they are recaptured.
He said their continued stay outside the Correctional centers was dangerous to the society, urging the service to deploy all means available to get them back into the custodian centers.
The minister also directed that the DNA of all the inmates at the custodian centers should be captured to have a true picture of their identities.
Aregbesola spoke at the retreat for senior officers of the Nigerian Correctional Service held in Sokoto on Monday.
He said, “In our desire to have greater control and ease the recapture of escaped inmates, it is very important to also have their DNA the moment they come into your care. The usefulness of this is more than recapturing escaped inmates. DNA will give you a near-absolute certainty on the identity of the inmates in your care, 99.99999 percent, according to the experts.
“If you need to create a special unit, please do. You must make life difficult for them out there. I am directing you that you must take the DNA of everyone in custody now. If we have not developed the capacity of our personnel to do so, we will.
“We must fashion out strategies to recapture them. We must use technology to capture these inmates, let us use everything we can, let the world knows we are committed.”
