With the belated publication of part of the report of the board of inquiry set up by the Minister of Justice and Home Affairs on the escape of seven illegal immigrants from the Safi detention centre and the death of one of them, the uselessness of having multiple inquiries in parallel with a magisterial inquiry is again evident.

The departmental inquiry findings were received in August but the ministry published them in October. The report concedes that it is incomplete and has to wait for the completion of the report of the magisterial inquiry to finalise its own conclusions. Meanwhile The Times’ report adds the startling fact that “government sources stated that the late Nwokoye ‘had a slow pulse after he was caught and was likely to have suffered a heart attack’”.

A more bizarre opinion from a ghostly official source would be hard to find.

The actual findings of the departmental inquiry, namely non-observance of security procedures, insufficient training, inadequate surveillance from lack of CCTV and mobile video equipment, etc., could well have been arrived at by a military expert called to help a magisterial inquiry.

Clearly, plural simultaneous official inquiries are unnecessary costly obfuscations, which discourage the formation of any public opinion on the issue in question.