Okuneye Idris Olanrewaju, the Nigerian transgender woman better known as Bobrisky, spent only three weeks in prison after receiving a six-month sentencing for naira abuse in April, FIJ can report.
On Tuesday, Martins Vincent Otse, a social media user predominantly known as VeryDarkMan, released a phone conversation during which Bobrisky confessed to serving her term outside the prison and paying N15 million to have the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) expunge ‘money laundering’ from the charges against her.
The controversy has since attracted renewed attention to corruption in Nigerian prisons, with Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo already ordering “an unconditional and comprehensive investigation into the allegations of bribery and corruption within the Nigerian Correctional Service”.
On Thursday, sources familiar with the matter told FIJ that while Bobrisky was indeed taken to Kirikiri in April after her sentencing, she left after just three weeks. Meanwhile, she was only officially released from prison in August.
‘GUARDED LIKE A PRESIDENT’
“Bob spent only three weeks here with us in Kirikiri before she was taken out to another place we don’t know,” a prison official told FIJ. “That was where she spent her time; it was an ‘arrangee thing’. And money was involved.”
The source also told FIJ how Bobrisky was “guarded like a president” until she was “secretly taken away after three weeks”.
“She received VIP treatment all through,” said the source. “She lived in a special cell. The money she said she paid is actually true; no lies. Yes, she paid the money.”
The revelations by the source are in consonance with a 2019 undercover investigation by FIJ founder ‘Fisayo Soyombo, for which he deliberately got himself detained for five days by the police and incarcerated for eight days by the prison service, discovering that it was possible to pay money to live in well-furnished apartments inside prisons, pay to bring in phones, drugs and sundry outlawed items, strike one’s name off the prison records and even live outside the prison while supposedly serving out a jail term.
VIDEO CALL CAMERA ON BOBRISKY
Although the prison authorities did not allow Bobrisky to mingle freely with other inmates, consequently reducing the chances of her eventual disappearance being spotted, the prison official told FIJ about one noteworthy incident.
“There was this day one guy was on a video call with his girlfriend, and he suddenly turned the camera on Bobrisky,” the official said. “It was deemed an invasion of Bobrisky’s privacy, so, as punishment, he was locked up in his cell for nearly two months.”
The source added: “As I said, she was heavily guarded, so there weren’t many of such incidents to point at. And she was quietly taken away after three weeks.”
BUT JAMES BROWN VISITED BOBRISKY IN PRISON?
Since Otse released the audio, some social media users have been wondering whom James Brown, another crossdresser, met with when she announced on June 8 that she had gone to visit Bobrisky at Kirikiri.
“By the time James visited, Bobrisky was no longer in prison,” a source in James’ camp told FIJ on Thursday.
“James went there to see one guy called Vindicate who had invited her to join in recording a song from prison. The prison authorities liked the idea of a song recorded from prison, so they let her come.
“I don’t know why James lied that she went to see Bobrisky; maybe for clout. I will send you videos of James in prison with the people she went there to see. But have you ever seen just one photo of Bob and James in prison?”
NO DENIAL FROM THE PRISON SERVICE
The Nigerian Correctional Service has neither denied nor confirmed claims that Bobrisky did not serve her jail term in Kirikiri.
However, on Thursday night, the interior ministry announced that the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board had suspended two deputy controllers of corrections (DCCs) in charge of the medium security custodial centre, Kiri-kiri, Michael Anugwa and Sikiru Adekunle, “over their unprofessional conduct in handling the case of Nigerian crossdresser Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky”.
Announcing the action, Ja’afaru Ahmed, secretary of the board, said the suspension was done to pave the way for further investigations.