The police spokesperson added that the force would live up to it constitutional responsibilities, which include arrests and prosecution of suspects.
The Police Command in Lagos State says it will continue to arrest suspected criminals and prepare them for prosecution even if court rejected their arraignment in the state.
The command’s spokesperson, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, stated this on Friday while reacting to a story in the social media that some courts in Lagos State have rejected the arraignment of suspects from the police due to congestion at Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS) facilities in the state.
Hundeyin, who did not confirm if truly courts were rejecting suspects brought by the police officers, however, said that the force would live up to it constitutional responsibilities, which include arrests and prosecution of suspects.
“We will continue to do our job, even when the courts do not accept suspects from us. When we take suspects to court and they are rejected, we will take them back to court again.
“We are going to continue to arrest all criminals, investigate them and those that have questions to answer will be charged to court,” Hundeyin said.
Also reacting to the story, the image maker of Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS) in Lagos, Rotimi Oladokun, said that they were not rejecting suspects, rather, they were restricting the number of suspects admitted due to congestion.
“We are not rejecting suspects, we are only restricting the number of intake due to congestion. We are meeting with the Ministry of Justice and other stakeholders, to decongest the facilities,” he added.
Unconfirmed sources have earlier told NAN that many courts in Lagos State were rejecting suspects brought by police, attributing it to congestion at the NCS facilities.
A police source told NAN that the organisation was also making plans to decongest its cells, while the divisional police officers and area commanders were now responsible for the feeding of suspects kept in their cells.
The source, however, added that the police may likely stop arresting criminals if courts continued to reject suspects brought for arraignment. NAN also gathered from investigations that the Correctional Centre facilities in Lagos State were actually congested.
Some NCS officials, who spoke with NAN anonymously, attributed the congestion to large number of awaiting inmates and those on death row that were yet to be executed. The NCS officials also blamed the judiciary and police for bringing all manners of offenders to facilities, including those that alternative dispute resolution would have taken care of.
“The correctional facilities were full to capacity and even stretched to the extent that a hall, which is supposed to accommodate about 800 inmates were now over 3,000 inmates, to the extent that it has compromised the health of those in custody.
“There is no space in the Correctional Centres, It will only take divine intervention for the inmates to survive because they are filled beyond capacity and over-crowded,” an NCS official noted.
