The Minister of Interior Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo believes the Bobrisky saga is a reflection of institutional issues in the country.
Bobrisky, a popular cross-dresser whose real name is Idris Okuneye, has been embroiled in a saga over his jail time for naira abuse.
In a viral audio, the cross-dresser claimed to have paid some officials of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) to get special treatment in prison.
According to Tunji-Ojo, the incident which had dominated conversations for months, is a reflection of institutional issues.
“When you have an insittutional problem, you don’t just provide a knee-jerk approach to solving it,” he said on Tuesday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“We set up that committee to look into all the issues, beyond Bobrisky, beyond people absconding – it is a whole instutional issue.”
Tunji-Ojo said reforming Nigeria’s institutions is the way forward in resolving similar issues that may occur in the future.
“We cannot transfer today’s problem to the future,” the minister said.
A blogger, Martins Otse, known as VeryDarkMan, had alleged in viral audio clips that some officers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) collected ₦15 million from Bobrisky during his naira spraying ordeal in April for the anti-graft agency to drop money laundering charges against him. After that, a court sentenced him to six months imprisonment in April 2024. The cross-dresser was released in August.
The blogger also alleged that Bobrisky paid some millions of naira to secure a choice place in prison.
Bobrisky has since denied the allegations while the EFCC and NCoS had ordered investigations into the allegations by the blogger.
The House of Representatives also waded in and invited those involved for a probe while the Federal Government suspended some NCoS senior officers.
On September 30, 2024, Tunji-Ojo, inaugurated a committee to probe allegations of gross misconduct against the NCoS.
Thereafter, the panel said it “did not find any evidence thus far that suggested that Okuneye slept outside the custodial centre during the period of his imprisonment, which was from 12th April 2024 to the 5th August 2024, which is a six-month correctional sentence with the usual remission applicable”.
