The Nigerian Correctional Service, NCoS, has dismissed speculations that it was holding unto Senator Orji Uzor Kalu at Kuje Prisons due to certain vested interests. It said once all protocols regarding his release are met, it would have no choice but to set him free. The Public Relations Officer of the Service, DCC Austin Njoku, told Vanguard in a telephone interview on Monday night that the NCoS was yet to receive the certified true copy of the judgement of the apex court authorising the said release from its custody.
He said:
“How can we refuse to release him? What is our business with the judgement of the court? We have no business in keeping anybody at will. “We were not at the Supreme Court. Our own is when they bring the papers for us to release him.
The judgement was just on Friday. If papers are transmitted and his name is mentioned as someone to be released, we will release him.
“We do not keep people against the law. The law does not permit us to do that. We have no business in keeping him. If they bring the papers to us, we will authenticate the papers to ascertain that it is from a reliable source and we will release him.” There have been some online reports that Kalu was still being held at Kuje Prisons because he was a respondent and not an appellant in the case that the apex court decided on Friday.
Vanguard
