IPOB: Relatives kick over denial of access to detained women

Family members of the detained female members of the detained female members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on Wednesday protested the refusal of the Owerri Prisons Authority to grant them access to the women.

The 112 women were arrested and remanded in custody for protesting against the Federal Government over the whereabouts of the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

The women who protested half naked in Owerri, demanded for a referendum and boycott of the 2019 general elections in the Southeast.

They accused the Prison Authority of deliberately denying the detained women, who are mostly nursing mothers and pregnant women access to their families in order to break and punish them to expressing their opinion.

But the Public Relations Officer of Owerri Federal Prisons, James Madugba, said that prevailing circumstances made the Prisons Authority deny families members access to the detained women.

Madugba, a Deputy Superintendent, described as untrue the allegation that the prison officers received an order from “above” not to allow the remanded women access to their loved ones.

He said that the Armed Personal Carrier deployed in front of the prisons facility with Police and Soldiers was not to scare the relatives of the pro Biafra women from visiting their loved ones in their facility.

He said that the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) and the Police and Army officers deployed in front of the facility were part of the security measures in all the prisons nationwide.

Madugba said “We did not ordinarily deny family members access to the Biafra women who are in our facility and there is no order from above asking us not to allow relatives of the the women access to them.

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“It is not also true that we exposed the women, especially the pregnant ones to cold and inhuman environment”.

He added that, “the task of admitting and registering 112 people in any prison facility in Nigeria is tasking. You don’t just bring people into the prisons and the next minute you want to start visiting them .prisons is a regimented environment. There are regulations.

“The responsibility of interviewing, admitting and registering such number of women would take four days. It is after these processes that you now allow families members to start visiting.

“When the relatives came, the Deputy Controller of Owerri prisons, Freedman Ben-Rabbi addressed them but they started protesting. It is the routine and now we are through with the registration processes their relatives can visit.

“The Deputy Control has equally taken special attention on the women,especially the pregnant ones because of their gender.

“They are being taken care of properly .They are our responsibility. There is no order at all commanding us to be hostile to them.”

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