Detention facilities must conform to int’l standards – NHRC

Executive Secretary, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Tony Ojukwu, has called on government agencies and institutions in charge of detention facilities to ensure the standard of the facilities under their care in line with minimum international standards.
Ojukwu said prisoners and other detainees in the country should be treated with inherent dignity and values as human beings.
The NHRC boss made the call when he led a team of senior officials of the Commission on an audit of the detention facilities of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) headquarters in Abuja recently.
He told the anti-graft body to ensure that detainees are allowed access to their lawyers, family members and medications after a thorough inspection of the detention facilities operated by the anti-graft agency.
The Executive Secretary, who fielded questions from some of the detainees during the exercise, urged the EFCC management to ensure quick dispensation of complaints before them in order to reduce congestion and prolonged detention.
The NHRC boss reminded the EFCC management that “detainees under their custody are not convicts and therefore efforts should be made to accelerate the determination of their cases including diligent prosecution.” He stressed on the use of intelligence-led investigations to ensure speedy trials.
He also reiterated the need for EFCC to reduce its workload by concentrating on high profile economic crimes so as not to congest their operations and cells with case files that could be handled by the Police or other law enforcement agencies.
Earlier, while meeting with the management of the EFCC, the Executive Secretary commended the work of the EFCC, which he described as intelligence driven and challenging, applauding the whistle blowing policy of the government as a wonderful innovation in combating corruption.
EFCC Ag Chairman, Ibrahim Mustapha Magu, who expressed delight in the visit of the NHRC, stated that the facilities were some of the best around, adding that the commission had nothing to hide.
The Acting Chairman noted that corruption is the mother of all human rights violations adding that if there is any problem facing the country today, it is corruption.
Magu stressed that EFCC would remain unrelenting in its work in spite of attempts to blackmail it and called on Nigerians to take ownership in the fight against corruption and impunity and assist the government in the war against corruption.