Scandal: Assistant Comptroller of Correctional Service Impregnates Inmate’s Wife

By Gideon Njoku

The unbelievable has just happened at the Suleja Medium Correctional Centre. It is a scandal which stinks to high heavens.

The Assistant Comptroller in charge of the Correctional Centre, Abdulrahman Musa, has done the inexplicable. Musa has married the wife of an inmate under his custody. The young Fulani woman is already pregnant for him, after he married her about a month ago.

Sources from the Correctional Centre told this Magazine that the ACC married the inmate’s wife by deceit. He deceived the inmate, his wife and her parents to carry out the shameful act.

Musa’s path and that of the inmate’s Wife crossed at the Correctional Centre.

The inmate, Ismael Muhammad, a Fulanin, is in cell 5 of the new building of the Correctional Centre. He is awaiting trial, having been arrested as, allegedly, a member of a 15-man armed robbery gang.

Since his arrest, it became his wife’s lot to visit him in custody with their baby. During one of her visits, he caught the attention of Musa.

Being of Fulani stock, she is as beautiful, as most Fulani women.  The ACC could not take his roving eyes off the young woman. He loved what he saw. And, devised a means to make her his.

For him, it was simple. He decided, on every such visit, to invite her to his office, and conduct the visit himself. That, of course, is not his job.  But he descended that low to do it just to be with the young woman.

Then, he made his move. First, he began to lavish her with gifts and money. Soon, he told her that the offence her husband committed was so grievous he would never come out of prison. That being so, he, the ACC, wouldn’t want her to suffer. He convinced her to marry him.

Flaunting money, and telling her parents same story, he convinced them of a better better future if their daughter married him.

They were happy, and apparently, so was their daughter.

But there was another obstacle. The inmate. He needed to have him divorce  his wife before carrying out his heinous crime. Again, it was easy for him.

He began to give inmate Muhammad money  in trickles. Then, he began a business for him with the sum of N11,000. The business was that of mee shaie (Selling of bread and tea) within the Prison premises.

Then, the ultimate.

The ACC told the inmate that he would help so he wouldn’t spend than three months in prison.

To perfect his plan, one day, he gave the inmate, Muhammad, a written letter to sign, telling him it was part of the document to be used to release him from custody soon. Being a stark illiterate, who could neither read, nor write English, or his native language, he signed. Little did he know he signed a letter to the effect that he has divorced his wife.

With the divorce letter in hand, he went ahead and married the inmate’s wife.

Muhammad got to know of the terrible fate that has befallen him, and the ACC’s deceit from visitors.

Worried that his wife had stopped visiting, he asked questions. That was when he was told that his wife had become Mrs ACC Musa.

His reaction: He wept no end, and narrated his fate to his fellow inmates. They revolted. While they were revolting, staff of the Correctional Centre, who had heard the story, tried to calm them down to no avail.

When the ACC made to go to see them to find out what the problem was, they politely, without telling him what was afoot, advised him not to. But he insisted on going, saying: “I am in charge here.”

When he got there, the angry  inmates welcomed him by pouring ‘kunu’ and dirty water on him. He ran for his life before the arrival  of the Comptroller of FCT Command, CC Maryaki and other Security personnels .

It is not that ACC Musa had no wife before this scandalous marriage. In his house are two wives. The inmate’s wife is the third wife. And he has children.

His shameful behaviour has been reported to the  authorities. As a first step, before investigations and disciplinary actions are concluded, he has been removed from the Suleja Medium Correctional Centre. Unconfirmed report says he has been posted to Kano. Why he would be posted to Kano, his home State, instead of being placed on suspension, is what most people don’t understand.

Before this incident, sources had told this magazine that he was not an effective ACC.  They said he was indifferent to a number of things.

For instance, staff had informed him of a strong suspicion that a huge python lives by the soakaway near the Correctional Centre’s Clinic, and that medical staff, especially those on night duty, are in perpetual fear for their lives. He had been asked to bring in snake charmers to smoke the python out. He ignored it, saying the python “is a spirit.”

Meanwhile, while staff of the Suleja Correctional Centre are trying to cope with the shame brought upon them by ACC Musa, a new officer, ACC D Ali, has been posted to Suleja to take charge.