Militants Tuesday last week, attacked the Kuje medium-security prison in Abuja, and freed dozens of jihadists including the leader of the brutal terrorist group, Ansaru.
Armed with bombs, Rocket Propelled Grenade and General Purpose Machine Guns, the attackers, who arrived at about 10:05 p.m, gained access through the back of the prison, using dynamites to destroy the heavily fortified facility, freeing 600 out of the prison’s 994 inmates, who are mostly jihadists.
They also took their time to deliver a Quranic lecture and subsequently shared transport fares to their freed members.
The Islamic State in West Africa Province would later claim responsibility for the attack.
They even released a video showing a part of the prison in flames and many of the inmates fleeing the prison.
While reacting to the jailbreak that lasted for close to two hours, President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his sadness and berated the country’s overall intelligence system.
This is, however, not the first time a deadly jailbreak has taken place under his administration.
On July 29, 2016, 13 inmates escaped during a jailbreak at the Koton/Karfe Correctional Centre in Kogi State.
The prisoners forcefully brought down a section of the prison wall before escaping from the premises, and security agencies were only able to re-arrest one of the inmates after the incident.
On August 9, 2016, attackers struck again, and at least 15 inmates broke out of their cells and scaled the perimeter fence at the Nsukka Correctional Centre in Enugu State. Only two inmates were rearrested by security operatives after the incident.
On December 27, 2017, 36 inmates escaped during a deadly jailbreak at the Ikot Ekpene Correctional Facility in Akwa Ibom State.
The prisoners were said to have wrestled an axe from kitchen staff and used it in fighting prison officials.
In the end, 36 inmates escaped from the facility. While four died during the incident, seven inmates were recaptured by law enforcement agencies.
Similarly, armed men attacked the Medium Security Correctional Facility in Tunga, Minna, Niger State, on June 3, 2018. During the prison break, over 200 inmates were freed.
In the end, only 28 prisoners were recaptured by security operatives.
“As many covert investigations have indicated, there’s corruption in the system and this must be tackled and reduced to the barest minimum if it’s not possible to totally eradicate it”
During the October 2020 #EndSARS protest, hoodlums numbering over 100 in Benin, the Edo State capital launched coordinated attacks on the Benin and Oko prisons in the city, broke cells open and freed several inmates.
Before launching the attack, the hoodlums had gathered as early as 7 am in the morning, setting bonfires and blocking road users. During the jailbreak, 1,993 prisoners escaped from both prisons.
A few hours later, one of the inmates who had escaped from Oko prison went to his village to kill a witness who had testified against him in court.Two weeks after the incident, only a total of 207 either turned themselves in or were rearrested.
On October 22, 2020, another set of hoodlums attacked the National Correctional Service Facility in Okitipupa, Ondo State, pulling down the walls of the prison and setting 58 prisoners free.
The hoodlums also set the police area command in the local government area headquarters on fire, burnt many cars, and injured many officials. They were also said to have carted many police rifles away during the attack.
On the same day, assailants attempted to break into the Ikoyi Correctional Centre in Lagos but were repelled by a combined team of correctional officers and soldiers.
Gunmen attacked the Owerri Custodial Centre in Imo State with explosives and dynamite on April 5, 2021, freeing 1,884 inmates. In the attack described as one of the worst in the country’s history, the operation lasted from 1 am to 3 am.
The prison authorities revealed that 600 inmates either returned to the facility or were rearrested after the attack.
Also, on September 12, 2021, unknown assailants stormed the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Kabba, Kogi State, engaging the armed guards in a fierce gun battle.
Due to the armed men’s superior firepower, more than 240 inmates were released, and two prison officials were killed. After the incident, security agencies said they rearrested 114 prisoners.
On October 22, 2021, unknown assailants attacked the Abologo Custodial Centre in Oyo State, freeing 837 prisoners in the process.
When a manhunt was launched to re-arrest the fleeing inmates, security officials were only able to recapture 252 prisoners.
After four inmates escaped from its premises in July 2021, the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Jos, Plateau State, suffered another attack on November 28, 2021, when armed men attacked the prison and released 262 inmates.
During the deadly attack, 10 inmates and one security official were killed.
How the terrorists managed to attack a well-guided facility just by the nation’s capital with such ease shows how challenged Nigeria’s security system is.
According to official records of the Nigerian Correctional Service, the current population of inmates across correctional facilities in the country is 70,237.
This figure is way higher than the 57,278 inmates carrying capacity of correctional facilities in the country, as revealed last year by the Interior Minister, Rauf Aregbesola.
To solve this congestion problem, in February 2018, former Interior Minister, Abdulrahman Dambazzau, said the federal government would construct six ultra-modern prisons in the six geo-political zones of the country. But this approach might be reading the problem differently.
Nigerian prisons have a congestion problem; no doubt. But data reviewed by HumAngle suggests that the primary solution might not be the construction of new facilities: according to data from the World Prison Brief, 73.5 percent of inmates in Nigerian prisons are awaiting trial. This indicates that the congestion of prisons in Nigeria is an after-effect of the country’s slow judicial system.
The surge in attacks on prisons in the country is caused by a number of factors prominent among which is the congested prison and slow judicial process.
How can we have about 1,000 inmates in prison while over 500 are still awaiting trial?
The prisons themselves are not strengthened in terms of military personnel and anything they want to do psychologically and morally, all these things need to be put in place.
The way forward is for prison authorities to retrain and equip their Intelligence units for more actionable intelligence and counterintelligence.
There is a need for technology-assisted 24/7 facility monitoring and surveillance through advanced CCTV cameras, possibly 4g Solar cameras with systems linked to the Central Monitoring System.
As many covert investigations have indicated, there’s corruption in the system and this must be tackled and reduced to the barest minimum if it’s not possible to totally eradicate it.
