The Nigeria Correctional Service has refuted reports that they moved the controversial cross-dresser Idris Okuneye, also known by his alias Bobrisky, from its Ikoyi detention center to Kirikiri, Lagos State.
Okuneye was sentenced to six months in prison for misusing naira notes.
Last weekend, Bobrisky was allegedly secretly transferred to Kirikiri Prison, where he was supposed to spend his term.
He was still being imprisoned at Ikoyi Prison, Punch Metro was told by an NCoS official on Thursday.
The criminal did not commit a serious enough crime to merit his transfer to a maximum-security prison, where the majority of inmates given life or death sentences were housed, according to the officer, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to talk on the matter.
The informant said;
“Bobrisky has not been moved, he is still here in Ikoyi. He was not sentenced to death and didn’t get a life sentence either. Those people sentenced to death and given life sentences are mostly kept in the maximum prison.
That is mostly based on capital punishment. As for Bobrisky, he didn’t commit a capital offence, so why would they take him to Kirikiri,”
Moving some inmates across the state’s detention centers was still being discussed, according to another official, who also wished to remain anonymous because he lacked the official authority to communicate with the media.
The change was made for decongestion, the NCoS spokesman continued.
“Sometimes, when we discover that the population of inmates is much in a facility, we decide to move them just to decongest. We are only considering that at the moment and not that anyone has been moved. If the prison authorities want to move, they have the right. We also do so if the person has a communicable disease or because the inmate requested it for proximity to the family or an appeal on humanitarian grounds.
The leadership might also say, ‘Let’s spread those who have less than one year sentence’, which may apply to Bobrisky, just to create space for those awaiting trial. But such people rarely go to the maximum prison,” the source disclosed.
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