Brutality, Homosexuality, Extortion Rife In Owerri Correctional Centre

An ex-inmate of the Owerri Correctional Centre, Victory Nnadi has said the facility thrives in brutality, forced homosexuality, and extortion perpetrated by fellow inmates.

Nnadi, one of the four victims of false imprisonment by an Anglican cleric and owner of Enedo General Services,  Victory Nnadi, yesterday narrated how he was brutalized for resisting to be forcefully sodomized by male inmates a day after his arrival on November 29, 2024, at the Owerri Correctional Centre.

The four people are  legal tenants at the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Imo State secretariat who reside in the complex.

The Imo State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, was in court until last month to stop the plot to sell their secretariat. While the matter with suit number; HOW/542/2021 was pending in the court, the union also secured a restraining order preventing Enedo General Services, which is purportedly owned by a certain Anglican priest, Nlemchukwu from taking possession of the property.

Nnadi, Chinedu Oguguom, Samuel Nduka, and a female Ogechi Chima said they were picked up from NUJ secretariat and dumped at the Correctional centre without arraignment by alleged desperate land speculators involving the Port Harcourt road premises of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, from November 28 and December 10, 2024 where they passed through varying forms of abuse.

He appealed to the state and federal government to launch a commission of inquiry into the happenings in the place with a view of solving the problems.

Nnadi said, “ I was nearly raped at the Owerri Correctional Centre a day after our arrival. At the male cell they asked me to go to the toilet and undress but I refused. They immediately started forcing and I refused.

“They now started beating me and inflicted these injuries all over my body. These are my fellow men wanting to have carnal knowledge of me. They called it a normal thing there but I refused.”

When contacted, the spokesperson for Owerri Correctional Centre, Goodluck Uboegbulam, said that he was not aware that such an act is occurring at the facility.

He blamed the victim for not reporting the crime to the prison facility, adding that the Correctional Centre authorities had zero tolerance for such an act.

The four of them called for the arrest of Rev Godson Nlemchukwu and the chief Bailiff of the Magistrate court, Mr Onyekachi Uba for deceiving the court, which led to their false imprisonment and confiscation of their properties.

Their statement reads, “On the issue of our property, we give the chief Bailiff 7 days to return all our properties carried away from NUJ Secretariat, or else we shall seek redress through every legally permissible means.

“Finally, we also urge the Attorney General of Imo State COC Akaolise to thoroughly investigate the circumstances that led to our imprisonment and punish those involved to serve as deterrent to others.