By Mario Deepromoter
Nigerian transgender, Okuneye Olanrewaju, popularly known as Bobrisky, reportedly spent less than a month in prison following a six-month sentence for naira abuse in April, according to a report by FIJ.
On Tuesday, social media personality Martins Vincent Otse, known online as VeryDarkMan, shared a recorded phone conversation in which Bobrisky allegedly admitted to serving the majority of her sentence outside of prison.
She also claimed to have paid N15 million to have the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) drop charges of ‘money laundering’ against her.
These revelations have reignited discussions about corruption within Nigerian prisons. In response, Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has ordered “a thorough and unconditional investigation into the allegations of bribery and corruption within the Nigerian Correctional Service.”
Sources close to the situation informed FIJ on Thursday that while Bobrisky was initially taken to Kirikiri prison after her sentencing in April, she left after only three weeks and was officially released in August.
‘Guarded Like a President’
An official from Kirikiri prison shared with FIJ, “Bob spent only three weeks here with us in Kirikiri before she was taken out to another place we don’t know. That was where she spent her time; it was an ‘arrangee thing’. And money was involved.”
The source added that Bobrisky was “guarded like a president” until she was quietly removed from the prison.
“She received VIP treatment all through,” the source continued. “She lived in a special cell. The money she said she paid is actually true; no lies. Yes, she paid the money.”
These claims align with a 2019 undercover investigation by FIJ founder ‘Fisayo Soyombo, where he intentionally got himself arrested and imprisoned, exposing the fact that it was possible to bribe prison officials for privileges such as living in furnished cells, bringing in contraband items, and even avoiding the prison sentence entirely.
Video Call Incident with Bobrisky
The source also recounted a notable incident during Bobrisky’s time at Kirikiri. While prison authorities kept her isolated from other inmates, one event stood out.
“There was this day one guy was on a video call with his girlfriend, and he suddenly turned the camera on Bobrisky,” the official shared. “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.”
James Brown’s Visit to Bobrisky?
After Otse released the audio recording, social media users began questioning whom James Brown, another well-known crossdresser, visited in Kirikiri prison when she claimed to have visited Bobrisky on June 8.
“By the time James visited,” Bobrisky was no longer in prison, a source from James’ camp revealed to FIJ on Thursday.
“James went there to see one guy called Vindicate who had invited her to collaborate on recording a song from prison. The prison authorities liked the idea of a song recorded from prison, so they let her come.”
No Denial from the Prison Service
As of now, the Nigerian Correctional Service has not publicly denied or confirmed the claims that Bobrisky did not fully serve her jail term at Kirikiri.
However, on Thursday night, the Interior Ministry announced that two deputy controllers of corrections (DCCs) in charge of the medium-security custodial center at Kirikiri, Michael Anugwa and Sikiru Adekunle, had been suspended “over their unprofessional conduct in handling the case of Nigerian crossdresser Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky.”
Ja’afaru Ahmed, the secretary of the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board, announced that the suspension was necessary to allow for further investigation.