Nigeria: 37 minors die of asphyxiation in detention centre
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Daily Post
An inquiry report attributed the deaths of 37 alleged illegal miners held in Minna, Niger State, Nigeria, to asphyxiation. Civil society analyst and advocate Blessing Akinlosotu is calling for urgent reform of detention centres and implementation of the commission’s recommendations, according to the Daily Post Nigeria.
Blessing Akinlosotu, director of the National Civil Society Council of Nigeria, asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to declare a state of emergency in Nigeria’s detention centres and correctional facilities. The call was made on Wednesday after the publication of a commission of inquiry’s report into the deaths of 37 alleged illegal miners held by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, according to the Daily Post.
The commission, chaired by Jonathan Kure, deputy director-general of the Department of State Services, concluded that the detainees had died of asphyxiation. It also described the detention centre in Minna, Niger State, as dilapidated, unsanitary, inhumane, severely overcrowded and unfit to house people.
Akinlosotu called for the commission’s recommendations to be fully implemented, as well as proportionate sanctions against those responsible. He attributed the tragedy to negligence, but also to the structural underfunding of national security agencies, including the NSCDC, which he believes are overwhelmed by the scale of their missions.
