A lawyer, Mr. Ahmed Adetola-Kazeem, has rejected the report of the Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ade Ipaye, on the alleged imprisonment of some under-18 children by the state’s Special Court.
Adetola-Kazeem, through his group, Prisoners’ Rights Initiative, had petitioned Ipaye alleging that there were underage children among those who were sentenced for minor environmental offences by the Special Court in Alausa, Ikeja on May 2, 2013.
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The inmates, who were arrested in the Oshodi area of the state in July, were more than 100 in number.
Ipaye, on August 14, said the report by a team he asked to investigate the allegation of underage prisoners, showed that though there were 13 of the prisoners, who appeared underage, only two of them admitted to being 16 and 19 years old respectively.
Ipaye said, “In the course of that visit, we discovered that some of the inmates, who claimed to be adults, indeed appeared underage, even though it was difficult to be very sure. Of the 13 of them, only two admitted to being 16 years and 19 years respectively.
“The others either did not know their actual dates of birth or, due to their low level of education, could not tell and randomly chose dates that indicated that they were adults.”
But Adetola-Kazeem on Tuesday expressed surprise that the state government could not conduct medical examination to ascertain the actual age of the concerned prisoners.
He also urged the state government not to restrict its investigation to those in Kirikiri Prison but to also interview those at Badagry Prison.
He said, “It is surprising to hear that their ages cannot be verified, this we make bold to say can be verified medically by medical experts at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital or the Lagos University Teaching Hospital.
“We also state unequivocally that over 70 per cent of them are below the age of 21 years and by the provision of section 238(8) of the child’s right law of Lagos State, youths on the attainment of the age of 18 but before the attainment of 21 years old shall be detained in the Youth Correctional Centre, not the prison as is the case presently.”
Many of them were confined in Maximum, Medium and Female sections of Kirikiri prisons while the rest were locked up in the Badagry Prison.
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