The House of Representatives has tasked the Ministry of Interior and the Nigerian Correctional Service on the acquisition and installation of solar-powered biometric capturing devices to capture full details of accused persons, both convicted and awaiting trial, to alert jailbreaks.

The call was sequel to the adoption of a motion by Godwin Emeka (LP-Anambra) at the plenary on Tuesday.

Moving the motion earlier, Mr Emeka recalled that in 2019, former President Muhammadu Buhari assented to an act which changed the name of the Nigerian Prison Service to the Nigerian Correctional Service.

He said that since the name was changed to Nigerian Correctional Service, which split the service into custodial and non-custodial service, more than 1000 inmates have escaped from the facilities nationwide.

According to the lawmaker, these jailbreaks are becoming a recurring decimal, a national embarrassment and a security threat.

“In spite of the change in nomenclature, critical infrastructure like provision of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV), Artificial Intelligence (AI), etc are not provided to meet modern challenges in the security ecosystem.

“We are concerned that the absence of modern technology equipment makes it impossible for the staff of the facilities to account for the number of escapees each time there is a jailbreak.

“Worried that if urgent steps are not taken to install modern security gadgets and equipment like installation of solar-powered biometric capturing devices for an on-the-spot capturing of inmates at the point of admission into the facilities, incessant jailbreaks will continue unabated with an attendant number of escapees unaccounted for,” he said.

In his ruling, the House speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, mandated the Committees on Reformatory Institutions, Interior and Legislative Compliance to ensure compliance and report within four weeks for further legislative action.

(NAN)