Lady arrested trying to smuggle phone hidden in soup into prison

Balogun

An attempt by a 33-year-old woman, Fatima Balogun, to smuggle a mobile phone into an Abeokuta prison, to give to her remanded boyfriend, backfired and landed her in trouble.

The woman was, on Wednesday, arrested after hiding the phone in a soup prepared for her boyfriend, Ganiyu Ajibode. The boyfriend was remanded for alleged armed robbery at the Abeokuta Maximum Prisons in Ibara.

She was arrested by men of the Special Intelligence Unit of the Nigerian Prisons Service.

The Ogun State Controller of Prisons, Benson Abolade, who confirmed the incident while parading Balogun in Abeokuta, said the suspect brought the soup in a cooler.

He said the woman wrapped the phone in a cellophane bag and cleverly hid the phone inside the soup.

Abolade described the action of the suspect as a threat to national security, adding that the offence will not be taken with levity by the Controller-General of Prisons.

According to him, some articles are prohibited inside prison, including handsets, weapons, drugs and sharp objects, among others.

He said: "It is an offence to bring these items to the yard without the permission of the prison officials. The Comptroller General frowns at such action because he knows that it impinges on national security and that is why he gave a tall order that Special Intelligence Unit should be formed in all the prisons formations nationwide."

Abolade, however, said the suspect would be handed over to the police for prosecution to serve as deterrent. The suspect confessed to the offence, saying she bought and hid the phone inside the soup.

Balogun revealed that she carried out the action in order to regularly communicate with her lover.

The suspect, who said she lives in Fagba, Iju-Ishaga, Lagos State, stated that she had never visited the prison since her boyfriend was remanded for armed robbery six months ago.

Balogun explained that she fell in love with Ajibode after her erstwhile husband, with whom she had two children, eloped with another woman, leaving her with the children.

She, however, claimed she never knew Ajibode was an armed robber.

She recounted:  "I hid it (the phone) in the stew because I know they wouldn’t allow me to take it to him in the prisons. I did not know it was a crime. I wrapped it in cellophane bag. We have been together for two years. I live with my father. I regretted my action. I plead that the government should forgive me."

Asked if her boyfriend asked her to smuggle the phone to him, Balogun said no.

The suspect maintained that she only felt she would be able to talk to him through the phone instead of coming to visit him in the prison often.