Federal Government Bans the use of phones in prison

The Federal Government has banned the use of mobile
phones in all the prison formations by the inmates and
prison officials.
It also directed the Nigerian Prison Service authorities to
recover all handsets from inmates within 30 days.
Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, who handed down the
order on Saturday in Abuja, during an interactive meeting
with the senior officers of the Prison Service, decried
indecent dressing by the inmates.
He stated that no inmate should be allowed to wear their
choice of clothes or shoes, as is the practice presently, “no
matter highly placed they may be.”
Moro said, “I have visited some prisons in other countries
as the Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Nobody,
no matter highly placed you are, you don’t come to prison
with your phones, not even the minister of Interior as the
supervising minister over the prisons. So, why are you an
exception?
“Henceforth, no matter who you are including myself, that
nobody goes into prison with telephones. And so, as you
are going from here, create a meeting platform where all
the officers that work in the prisons as they walk into
prisons, they submit their phones and collect them when
they close.
“Secondly, it means that you have one month to recover
all the phones in the custody of inmates across the prison
formations. Within one month, all prison formation must
recover all telephones from inmates.”
The minister threatened to deal with the NPS management
if it failed to carry out the directive, adding that he would
know if the phones were not recovered from the inmates
as ordered.
“Don’t forget that I will know if you fail to do this, because
we have various agencies in Nigeria that are tracking
telephone usages and MTN and other service providers
could make available such facilities. The consequence of
not doing this,you should already know,” he told the
senior prison officials.
Commenting on the recent attack on Koton-karfe prison in
Kogi State, the Minister expressed dismay over the failure
of the prisons intelligence unit and the armed squad to foil
the plots that led to two attacks within two years.
Moro directed the Acting Comptroller-General of Prisons,
Aminu Suley, to investigate and report back to him, within
two weeks, allegations that a prison officer assisted the
attackers with arms.

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