It was tragedy on Easter Monday for the family of a 27-year-old undergraduate, Ayooluwa Oladipupo, after he allegedly drowned in a swimming pool at a hotel in the Agbara area of Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State.
The deceased was said to be a final year student of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State.
According to sources, Oladipupo and his friends had gone to Soltrage Hotel to unwind, when he decided to swim with others in the hotel’s pool.
He was however said to have shouted for help under the water, a few minutes after he started swimming.
‘’Although he was rescued by other revellers around, but the amount of water he gulped while drowning in the pool was too enormous that efforts made to resuscitate or save his life after he was rescued failed completely leading to his death,’’ said a source who asked not to be named.
‘’ I think he was a 400 level management student and very humble. His body has been deposited at a public mortuary,’’ the source added.
Confirming the story, the spokesman of Ogun Police Command, Mr Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the incident was reported to the Agbara Police Division by one Ayo Adeseun.
‘’The incident happened on Easter Monday around 10 pm at Soltrage Hotel, Petedo, Agbara and was reported to our division at Agbara by a man called Ayo Adeseun. The deceased was 27-years old; he was rescued from the pool and taken to Oluwalogbon Hospital, Petedo, for treatment, and later gave up the ghost there.’’
A suit involving the embattled chairman of Ikota Shopping Mall Traders’ Association, Alhaji Ahmed Qassim, and other chieftains of the association has been adjourned till April 19.
Qassim had approached a Lagos High Courtt sitting in Epe, to stop the association’s Financial Secretary, Timothy Adereti; Mrs Adebola Ajao; Kennedy Alogaga and others from parading themselves as leaders of the association.
A leading telecommunication company was said to have paid about N12.5 million to the association headed by Qassim, for the renewal of the space on which its mast was installed.
The money however triggered a controversy as members accused the leadership of the association headed by Qassim of foul play over the transaction.
The controversy led to the call for Qassim’s sack while an interim executive committee was inaugurated to oversee the affairs of the association.
Irked by the development, Qassim filed a suit before the court asking for a restraining order against members of the interim executive committee.
In his ruling, Justice Abisoye Bashua granted the interim orders at the instance of Alhaji Qassim to continue to lead the association.
Tale of infants languishing in prison with their mothers
Nigeria in 2003 domesticated the United Nations General Assembly resolution 44/25 Convention on the Rights of the Child which came into effect on September 2, 1990. But 15 years after the country domesticated the convention that is globally accepted as the most widely ratified human rights convention, there has been little or no respite for the malleable ones in the society. In 2013, the United States country human rights reported that Nigeria’s notorious jails and detention centres hold an estimated 6,000 children and minors, many of whom were born there and serving terms with their parents despite government’s order to effect their release. Nothing appears to have changed since the report was made public.
‘…it is a happy day and things are gonna get better’. So reads the third line of the second stanza of the Kirikiri Female Prison anthem. But for most of the inmates, especially the pregnant and nursing mothers, things aren’t looking any better. All they see is total darkness and hopelessness. Their frustration is further compounded by the fate of their innocent babies and the stigmatization that could be their lot when they eventually regain their freedom from the overcrowded prison.
The prison has capacity for 211 inmates but as at the time of the visit, the inmates were over 300 with 69 already convicted and 232 awaiting trial.
Some of the embattled inmates sorrowfully clutched their babies to their chests as they dejectedly walked around the prison premises, while the infants of walking ages innocently gamboled around without being unaware of the fate that awaits them.
“I have been here for weeks because I couldn’t perfect my bail. I was given a bail of N20, 000 but there was nobody to pay it. I am more worried about my child. Tears drop from my eyes uncontrollably each time I think of my child being in the prison with me. It is sad,” one of the inmates told The Nation.
Another inmate said: “I gave birth to my baby here in the prison. I am in the Olomo Cell with other nursing mothers. I was pregnant when I was brought here and ended up putting to bed here. It doesn’t feel good to give birth and bring up a baby in the prison. The thought haunts me but I have taken solace in God.”
One of the inmates who said she was in prison for charges bordering on kidnapping, said: “I came with my baby to the prison. It is not a good experience for adults not to talk about children.”
Even though, children above 18 months of age are not permitted to be in prison custody, checks revealed that this law is often infringed upon.
The Nation’s observation was corroborated by the Executive Director of Prison Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) Benson Ngozi Iwuagwu.
According to him, “The maximum age that babies should stay with their mothers in the prison is 18 months. That is what the law says but you still discover that there are some above that age there and the reason is simple. You can’t throw the child outside the prison. There must be a responsible person that the child would be handed over to but where those are not available, the child remains in the prison until they find some solutions.
“The child is as good as a prisoner because that is where he was born. The birth certificate would indicate that?”
The National Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Prison Service, (NPS) Francis Enobore, admitted this in a chat with our correspondent. “Having children who are above 18 months in the prison is another big challenge to us. We are only empowered to allow a child that is below the age of 18 months to stay with the mother for them to bond properly before the child is finally weaned. Sometimes, some of these ladies that are found on the other side of the law, come from backgrounds that are not too rosy.
“Some of them don’t have families or know the person that impregnated them and so have nobody to take over the parenting role for the child. What we do is to go to the state welfare office and make complaints so that formally, there could be a body that can take over the care and support of the child.
“Sometimes we face some challenges in terms of weaning these children to the state welfare and where there is no credible adult who is a family member of these ladies coming forward to receive the child, it becomes a very big problem because we cannot throw the child into the street. These are some of the challenges we are always confronted with but somehow, we talk to religious bodies, NGOs and credible people who would come and formally provide foster parentage for such children.”
Speaking on the detention of underage in prison, Enobore said: “I would not agree that the police are responsible for detaining underage persons in prisons. Police only arrest and take suspects to court. If the magistrate sees the accused and does not see the accused to be underage before sending him to the prison, then we should not blame the police. The magistrates should be able to use their discretion to say the underage accused should be sent to a juvenile facility.
“Instead of saying the police, we should group all the security agencies together because all of them make arrest. We should work in harmony with those who have the power to arrest and those who have the power to sentence to prison in order to address the issue of detaining underage persons in prisons. Another thing we can do is to encourage state governments to assist the Federal Government to establish more centres where juvenile offenders are kept.”
Implications of detaining infants in prisons with mothers
The implications of detaining infants in prison with their mothers, according to Iwuagwu, is too enormous. “First of all, it is damaging to the child. It makes the child a scapegoat for the mother’s offence. It is largely damaging to the psychology and proper upbringing of that child. It is very very injurious and damaging not just to the child but also our future because if you have such children come out into the society, they are normally most of the time mal-adjusted, so you are like breeding problems for tomorrow.”
He advocated for the adoption of the Uganda model in Nigeria. “In Uganda, in front of the female prison, they have a full crèche where children born in prison are immediately transferred. But we don’t have that here. You see attempts at doing that but it has not succeeded. There in Uganda, babies don’t live with their mothers in the prison. The mother goes out there to breastfeed the baby. We should punish the guilty and not the innocent with the guilty.”
Cross section of female prisoners
Also speaking, a professor of Sociology and General Studies at the Obafemi Awolowo Univeristy, Ile Ife, Osun State, Professor Bisi Aina, said: “I am not sure we have a prison that is cognizant that a mother is bringing a baby and therefore has facilities for them. So, detaining a child with the mother has telling effects on the health of the child and the psyche. We are not sure the feeding and the water would be proper. For the child to grow up to feel that the first two to three years of his life he was in prison, would make prison not to be a deterrent to such a child anymore. Where the child grows up to behave well, it takes self-esteem away from him. Imagine a child growing up and part of her life story is that she spent the first five years in prison, it does not speak well.
“This is one of the lapses in our laws and governance. When you put a woman who does not have anybody to take the child off her in prison, the state should be responsible for the care of that baby. The state should put structures on the ground to take care of the baby and when the mother is out, she can go for the child. You cannot because of breast milk put a child in a condition that would be detrimental to his life. In this case we can do bottle feeding and that should be outside the prison. I don’t think any child should have prison experience. “
She added: “This issue is beyond establishing what happens to the child because we all know what will happen to him. That child can never have a proper care-from health, physical, emotion to spiritual. We should be talking about the gap in policy, the law, and the way we implement the rights law. The child belongs to the state. The country should get the citizens to be more committed to the state than the families. If you get to America, it is America first because the country plays much role in the life of the citizens than the family. Here we see prison as punitive and not reformative. The sin of the mother should not be visited on the mother. The child is a separate human being with his/her own rights separate from that of the mother. I don’t think that a child who has not committed any offence should be in prison.”
To address this challenge, Enobore said: “There are plans presently by the controller general of prisons to establish crèche where we have female prisoners. In Kirikiri Prison, there is a crèche that is 100 times better than what you have outside. The CG is saying that apart from Lagos and one or two other states with such facility, we need to establish and furnish crèche in all the places we have females detained.”
Other human rights issues in prison
Aside from cases of infants detained in prison with their mothers, findings showed that there are myriads of cases of exploitation and other human rights abuses going on in the prisons.
An inmate of Cell C in Badagry Prison who gave his name as Joseph relived how he has been allegedly exploited by his lawyer.
His words: “When I was first charged to court, I paid him N135,000 for my bail because he said he would pay the two sureties N40,000 each. On the day of another hearing, I discovered that he had withdrawn one of my sureties. He thereafter asked me to pay him for another surety. I gave him the N7,000 on me and had my parents send additional N30,000 to his bank account. But the surety was revoked.
“After that, he did some pranks with the surety matter and asked me to bring additional N200,000. I got angry at this point because if I should pay that money, all the payments to him would have been enough to settle the complainant. My people have arranged another lawyer who is willing to get paid after sorting out my case. My mother has breast cancer and cannot travel down here. I am sad that she has to be made to suffer all these. “
One of the warders at Kirikiri Prison also narrated how a lawyer allegedly fleeced an inmate’s family of the sum of N800,000 without doing anything about the case.
“When I heard about the matter, I called the lawyer and threatened to deal with him if he failed to refund the money. Initially, he tried to intimidate me but when he saw my level of seriousness, he refunded the money. All these happen because people get desperate to have their loved ones detained in prison to be released.”
File picture of a prisoner carrying her baby
Cases of mentally unstable inmates in prison
Even though mentally unstable persons are not supposed to be kept in prison custody, The Nation investigation showed that a number of them are in behind bars. Two of such people were noticed at the female section of the Kirikiri Prison. One of them is fair in complexion and the other dark. While the one that is fair in complexion managed to give an uncoordinated account of what led to her detention in the prison, the other could not make any sensible statement.
“I was at the bus stop when I saw people running. I saw people holding cutlasses. Some people came and took me and used cloth to cover my eyes and brought me here. That is all I can remember, ”the fair-complexioned inmate said.
Aside from the inmates suspected to be having mental health challenges, a number of the inmates are also afflicted by myriads of health issues. At the Kirikiri Medium Prison, The Nation learnt that over 20 inmates of the prison populated by men are suffering from hernia. One of the victims, it was learnt, has died as a result of complications resulting from the challenge with the fate of others still hanging. A warder at Ikoyi Prison informed The Nation that inmates who are mentally unstable in their custody are people with serious cases like murder.
Bemoaning the detention of mentally unstable people in prison, Mrs Lateefat Salau, the Lagos Coordinator of Legal Aid Council, said: “People with mental health issues are there in the prisons but the position is that they ought to be taken to psychiatric hospitals. The problem is that here in Lagos State, we don’t have psychiatric hospitals that are willing to admit them. This is why when they are arrested, they would just be dumped in prison.
“The courts do give orders that they should be taken to psychiatric hospitals but more often than not financial ability to do this is not there in the prison and the hospitals are not always willing to admit them without the financial support from their families.”
She, however, said: “Such inmates don’t remain in the prison forever. The court has a way of going round it. After waiting for a long time and if witnesses are not forthcoming, the court will have no alternative than to release them. The implication is that these mentally challenged people will now be unleashed on the society.”
Reacting, the NPS spokesman, Enobore, said: “It is only a psychiatrist that has the power to declare somebody to be mentally unstable. The fact that your freedom is going to be taken away would subject some people to psychological shock. We have psychologists in NPS; with time, some of these people are exposed to some psychological re-orientation to help them adjust to the environment they find themselves. But when the situation becomes so obvious, we refer such cases to the psychiatric hospital nearest to the prison where the inmate was originally sent.”
Inmates without legal representation
One challenge that is common to all the prisons is the problem of lack of legal representation for a good number of the inmates.
All the prisons, Ikoyi, Badagry and Kirikiri are filled with inmates that have no lawyers to represent them. The Nation learnt that the situation would have worsened if groups like Legal Aid Council, Prison Fellowship of Nigeria, PRAWA and the Directorate of Citizens’ Rights under the Lagos State Ministry of Justice have not been providing pro bono legal services to the affected inmates.
The Director of the Directorate of Citizens’ Rights, Mrs Omololu Idowu Adesina, said: “When the police arrest people and they are detained by the order of court, their parents or guardians may not know. When this kind of situation arises, it is now the duty of agencies of government to intervene. That is why the Office of the Public Defender (OPD) has been established to defend the defenceless or people that have no money to defend themselves. Our office is to defend indigent citizens, people who have no money because to employ the services of a lawyer doesn’t come cheap. That is why we do it free of charge.
“Many inmates will rot in the prison if the state government is not rendering the service through the directorate because there would be nobody to defend them.”
A young man identified as Sunday Agboola has allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself inide his room shortly after a row with his girlfriend
The incident happened penultimate Monday at the deceased’s home in the Abule Iroko area of Sango, in Sango/Ijoko Local Council Development Area of Ogun State.
The deceased was said to have moved into his apartment three monts ago.
An altercation was said to have broken out between the deceased and his girlfriend called Esther, following which the lady left the decease’s home in anger.
According to sources, Agboola’s mood changed immediately his girlfriend stormed out of his room and he kept top himself for several hours.
” No one can tell whether it was due to what happened between him and his girlfriend, but we noticed that he was not happy after his girlfriend left in anger and he kept to himself afterwards.
”He later went back to his room and idd not come out again. It was when some people knocked on his door and got no response that they peeped through the window and saw his body dangling from the ceiling.”
It was learnt that before his tragic death, Agboola had never been visited by his family members, hence, it was difficult to locate his relatives.
A resident said: ” We know that he is a native of Abeokuta, we never saw him with any of his family members throughout his brief stay in this house.
‘’Even his landlady wept regretting giving her house to the man. She said that it was one man called Ade that brought Agboola to rent a room in her house and that she did not know his stay here would end up in a tragedy like this.”
An alleged notorious cultist, identified simply as Kanmi alias Father and one Samuel Alami have been arrested by the police in Lagos.
The suspects were arrested around 5pm on Thursday, at Hassan Street, Ilasamaja while they were allegedly engaged in battle with a rival cult member.
According to the police, cult related violence had resumed in the neighbourhood following Kanmi’s release from prison.
Kanmi was alleged to have attempted to hack his victim but was apprehended by undercover policemen, tipped-off on their plot.
Spokesman for the command, Chike Oti, a Superintendent of Police (SP) confirmed the arrest of the suspects, adding that a locally made pistol loaded with two magazines was recovered from him
Oti said: “Based on credible intelligence available to Lagos State Police Command, that some cultists led by one Kanmi alias Father were planning to strike in Ilasamaja community on March 29, the Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, directed the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) SP Titilayo Oriyomi to bring to an end to the reign of the blood thirsty cult henchman, who had been terrorising that community for a long time now and had become worse since he came back from the prison.
“At exactly 5pm, Kanmi whose trade marks were sorrow, tears and blood, arrived the community with his gang, unknown to him that his rank had been infiltrated by underground operatives of the command.
“The DPO and team, who were on standby for him and his gang, sighted Kanmi and two of his associates at Hassan Street, Ilasamaja, in a fight with a young man suspected to be a member of a rival confraternity. Kanmi had lifted his machete to cut his rival before he was challenged by the police team.
“He immediately took to his heels and was pursued, arrested by the police. He was frisked and a locally made pistol loaded with two cartridges was recovered from him. Also arrested was one Alami Samuel, 22 years of age, an associate of Kanmi.
“The Commissioner of Police is using this medium to once again, warn all those who belong to nefarious, clandestine societies to renounce their membership or be arrested
A father of five, David Ehiosun, who was shot on his left leg by a trigger- happy mobile policeman in 2003 has cried out for help over the failure and continued delay of Police authorities to pay him a sum of N6.1 million awarded as damages by a Lagos High Court.
Ehiosun said he was shot by one Inspector Sunday Omoseigho at Kingsway bus stop close to Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way because he had refused to cooperate with the later to sexually harass a 15-year- old girl.
“He threatened to deal with me and even shoot me, so I walked away. The next day, when I was walking pass, he was sitting and drinking with his police friend at Kingsway bus stop. When he saw me, he stopped me and accused me of disobeying him. When I tried to explain myself he got angry and poured his drink on me.
“I asked him why he went that far and he said he would shoot me and while I was still trying to explain myself, he shot me on my left leg. Immediately he ran away, I was left in the pool of my own blood. People around quickly looked for a vehicle and rushed me to Lagos State University Teaching Hospital in Ikeja.”
A medical report issued by a consultant with the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Dr. Mustafa I. A. made available to newsmen revealed that the victim who had since lost the use of his left leg sustained open fracture of the left tibia and fibula from which he bled profusely.
In a bid to get justice, the 45-year- old driver, an indigene of Edo State, through the office of the Public Defender had in 2009 sued Inspector Omoseigho, the Commissioner of Police (CP) Lagos State and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) in Suit No: ID/574/2009.
After years of prolonged adjournments, Justice Bola Ighile of the High Court of Lagos State had on October 15th, 2014, awarded the claimant the sum of N6.1 million as damages.
Surprisingly, almost four years after the court judgment, Ehiosun is yet to be paid the damages.
According to him, life has not been the same since the incident, as he has spent all he had on both orthodox and traditional medicine treatment.
Ehiosun said the injury led to the loss of his job as a driver to a banker, making him a liability to his family.
In his words, “Due to the injury I sustained from the gun shot, I can’t stand for long and can’t even walk well. I have been going in and out of hospital admission due to complications from the injury.
“I have five children and I cannot even fend for them. Feeding daily and taking care of my bills is now a luxury I cannot afford. Some of my children have been forced to drop out of school. I just want the police to do the needful so that I can get my life together and give my children a better life. ”
On the attempts made to ensure compliance on the part of the Police, the victim said he had also written to the Lagos State Government to intervene in the matter.
He said: “In 2017, I wrote to the office of the Lagos State Governor to come to my aid. The governor ordered the Attorney General/ Honourable Commissioner ministry of Justice to act on my case. But till date, nothing has been done.”
Lamenting his ordeal, he said the police Inspector who was made to face orderly room trial and demoted to a Sergeant has robbed him of his happiness and good health.
“Does it now mean that a uniformed man can do whatever he pleases with the life of a common man and only get a slap on the wrist as punishment? Or is the police now above the law that even a court judgment mean nothing to them?” he said.
Nigeria is not ripe for the establishment state police, the National Vice Chairman of Arewa Youth Development Association, Alhaji Ado Shaibu Dansudu has said.
Dansudu noted that no African country has reached the level of governance where state police will not be abused by the state governors in order to gain political advantage over opponents.
He was of the opinion that the federal government will lose its relevance with the creation of state police.
He also called on the electorate to vote wisely in the forthcoming election in order to get the type of leadership that can move the country forward.
Operatives of the Inspector General of Police’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) have arrested six deadly kidnappers responsible for the abduction of Chief Nemi Adoki, 61, the Chief Executive Officer of Menakeb Limited on December 15, 2017 and the killing of one Maikano Abdullahi, a resident of Number 129 Victoria Street, Port Harcourt.
Two pump action guns were recovered from the suspects.
Chief Adoki was released from the creeks of Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State on January 4, 2018 after a sum of N9 million was paid as ransom.
The suspects were picked up between January 15 and February 5, 2018 at different locations in locations in Rivers and Bayelsa States.
It was learnt that the gang leader, Justice Timothy, 22, was responsible for the death of Mikano Abudullahi.
He was in charge of negotiations and his share from the ransom was N1.8million while Akpos Livinus, 33, coordinated the gang’s operations and arranged weapons used for the operation as well as the location of the stronghold in the creeks. His share was N1.2milion.
Daniel Allen, 27, who participated in the kidnap, also negotiated for ransom and pocketed a sum of N1million from the ransom, while Kelvin Alpheus, 30, who was tasked with cooking and running errands for the gang and hostages took N400,000 as his share of the ransom.
Others include the driver of the gang’s operational vehicle, David Abak, 29, who collected a sum of N 800, 000 from the ransom paid.
An ex-driver of the victim, Tekena Silva, 26, who connived with the gang, got a sum of one million naira from the loot.
It was learnt that efforts are ongoing towards apprehending a fleeing member
A gang of robbers on Thursday night swooped on an Air Peace plane while preparing for takeoff at the Murtala Muhammed Airport , Lagos.
The incident occurred at about 7.35 pm on Runway 18 Right ( A1) of the airport,the airline said yesterday.
It said suspected bandits opened the cargo hold of the aircraft.
Spokesman for the company, Chris Iwarah said the crew observed the development and insisted on thorough security of the Abuja – bound flight after the incident .
Iwarah said the carrier’s crew acted in line with the high safety standards of the airline.
He expressed appreciation to “all our wonderful guests on board Flight 7138 for their support, patience and cooperation throughout the precautionary security checks conducted by Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) squad, Federal Airport Authorities of Nigeria Aviation Security and our security team after suspected thieves opened the cargo hold of our aircraft.”
Pilot-in-Command, Capt. Adesola Arasi was said to have contacted the control tower “when he was alerted by the light that came on in the cockpit suggesting that the cargo hold was opened for about 15 seconds and immediately shut.”
He added: “In line with our high security standards and the huge value we place on the lives of our guests and crew, Capt. Arasi insisted on having EOD squad check Flight APK 7138 before takeoff to be doubly sure nothing was deposited in the cargo hold by the suspected thieves to endanger the lives of our guests and crew.
“Our guests, who were fully briefed of the development by the pilot-in-command, were advised to disembark from the aircraft and board an Air Peace bus while the joint security operation by EOD, FAAN AVSEC and our security team lasted. The Lagos-Abuja flight was cleared by the security experts after exhaustive screening of the aircraft lasting about 30 minutes.
“The flight eventually took off at 9.30pm and safely landed in Abuja at about 10.23pm. Our satisfied guests commended the professionalism of Capt. Arasi and his team as well as the high safety standards of Air Peace.”
