In 1988, Nobel Laureat Professor Wole Soyinka a notable human rights campaigner received a letter from an inmate of a previously unknown ultra-secret detention facility, he gave the letter to the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) to investigate. The secret detention center was later discovered on Ita-Oko Island, a remote island located in the Lekki Lagoon in the east of Lagos. The Ita-Oko detention centre was a prison colony run by the NSO where mostly political prisoners were held. The Island was totally cut off from all civilisation, it was only accessible by helicopter or boat and the waters surrounding it were crocodile-infested. This Island detention facility was established in 1978 under the cover of it being used as a farm settlement by the Ministry of Agriculture. In a letter he wrote to the "New York Times" after the paper broke the story of the Island prison's existence, Olusegun Obasanjo justified its existence thus; "Ita Oko was established as a farm settlement during the implementation of Operation Feed the Nation, which aimed at the increase of food production. It was provided with boreholes, an electric generating plant and a medical facility. It aimed at decriminalizing people – Nigerians and non-Nigerians – who refused to work, even though work was available..."