LEDAP urges Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to provide testing kits to prisons, police cells

PTF on Covid-19 members.

By Editor. 9/4/2020.

Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), a pressure group, has commended the efforts of government to curtail COVID19 in Nigeria but urgently asked the Presidential Task Force on COVID19 to provide safety facilities and testing kits to all Nigerian Correctional Services centers, (Prisons), and law enforcement detention places in order to curb the spread of the pandemic at these places.

In a release circulated to media men today and signed by the group’s national coordinator, Mr. Chino Obiagwu (SAN), the organisation said it was worried about the extreme vulnerability and exposure of inmates in the Correctional Service Centres and detention cells to Coronavirus, adding that it was important that urgent attention and routine monitoring of these facilities are put in place to prevent a pandemic within detention centers.

LEDAP therefore called on the Presidential Task Force on COVID19 to as a matter of urgency direct that tests be carried out across all Correctional Service centers located in states that have confirmed cases of Coronavirus to ascertain the level of exposure within those facilities.

It also urged the task force to direct the creation of isolation centers within all Correctional Service centers and provide the resources to the authorities for the purpose.