Juliana Francis
On Tuesday 5th July 2022, gunmen numbering close to 300, believed to be terrorists, attacked the Kuje Correctional Centre located in Abuja, freeing 879 inmates, most alleged to be Boko Haram members.
The men attacked the prison with everything they had, including using explosives. The bombardment witnessed the death of personnel of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), who was attached to the Custodial Centre, and left three personnel of the Nigerian Correctional Service seriously injured.
Also in the attack, four inmates were killed, while16 inmates sustained various degrees of injuries.
The Service Public Relations Officer (SPRO), Mr. Abubakar Umar, would later state, “A total of 879 inmates escaped from the facility during the attack. As of the time of this report, 443 have been recaptured, 551 inmates are currently in custody, 443 inmates are still at large, four inmates are dead, and 16 inmates sustained various degrees of injuries and are being treated now.”
Incidentally, before the attack on Kuje Prison, another group ambushed President Muhammadu Buhari’s advance team in Katsina State.
The attacks were believed to be synchronised and both occurred just a few days after terrorists carried out a deadly attack at Shiroro in Niger State, where over 30 military and police personnel were killed.
Security experts have theorised that the ambush on Buhari’s convey was a deliberate distraction, to enable the terrorists to gain access into the prison.
While Nigerians were still reeling in shock over the daring attack, Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, stated that the manner of the attack was enough to prove that an insider was involved.
However, Julianafrancisnews.com spoke with some security experts on the brazen attack and escalating insecurity in the country and they had a lot to say.
A former Deputy Director, Department of State Services, Dennis Amachree, said: “It is expected that since the Owerri incident, a physical security upgrade would have been carried out on the custodial centers across the country. The prisons are too old, poorly designed, and with no modern equipment to keep dangerous criminals like Boko Haram fighters. Kuje Correctional Center is the wrong place to keep such criminals. It is also worrisome that intelligence reports given were not adhered to, to beef up security. It is now obvious that the whole prison system in the country needs a thorough review.”
He added: “Meanwhile, residents in the FCT need to be vigilant as there will be an increase in home invasions, car theft, and other criminal activities by the escaped prisoners.”
The Executive Director of Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), Okechukwu Nwanguma, also has something to say about the incident.
He said: “Nigeria’s security system is thoroughly compromised. Terrorists have infiltrated and taken over our security services. Government is complicit and incompetent. This is explained by the fact that terrorists accuse the government of disappointing them and saying they know what they wanted. This means that government knows who they are and where they operate. We even have individuals who go between them and the government, giving regular updates on the conditions of victims in their captivity. They kidnap people and keep them, demanding ransom, and the government is helpless. Families pay ransom to secure the release of their kidnapped members. The whole idea of ‘repentant terrorists’ being rehabilitated and integrated into the military without due diligence is dangerous and preposterous!”
Nwanguma noted that the bane of the Nigerian governance crisis was that criminal politicians recycled themselves in government.
He added: “The solution, in my view, is to change the system that continues to allow these recycled predatory and unproductive politicians to maintain grips on our politics and governance system.”
The Conflict Advisor at Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Mr. Salaudeen Hashim, described the attack as a national embarrassment, adding that it further exposed Nigeria’s dearth of actionable intelligence.
He also said: “That no one picked any single Intel around this attack tells us that we are running a system that is compromised for many reasons. Remember the senate president also alluded that this could be an inside job. There have been nine successful prison attacks in the recent past with over 5000 criminals on the loose, which tells us the real reason why insecurity is towering daily. The country is under siege. We, therefore, need an urgent and deliberate approach to reorganising our internal security. To say that even the Minister of Interior and the CG of the Custodial Centers have not addressed the nation and are both still occupying their various offices tells us no one oversees security decision making.”
Asked what he thought should be the solution to curtailing prison breaks and attacks in Nigeria, Hashim said: “First, there should be a hotline on every media platform to report arsonists, pedophiles, murderers, rapists, and terrorists that are on the run. 72 hours after the Kuje Prison attack, no one has put a number out there for citizens to report any suspicious persons. Most of the guys on the run are on death row. They will commit crimes to keep going. Guards on patrol are no longer vigilantes. They are into several businesses as a safety net for their income. Most hotels around the Kuje Prison are places they take inmates to at night to sleep and then return them in the morning. We have a custodial system that requires urgent and immediate overhauling to prevent an immediate future reoccurrence. This might happen again if the intelligence community is not acting within the required framework.”
Hashim also said there was a need to change the traditional recruitment for internal security.
According to him, “We must allow a single entry for every person using the military facility and training. This will make all personnel think the same way, act in the same manner, enjoy the same kind of resilience, and respond in the same way. Upon graduation, they can then be posted to customs, police, immigration, and custodial service where they then further learn specific knowledge related to their postings. This will benefit the country interns of the strength of fortification.”
Stating his third solution, Hashim said: “We should review welfare. Someone exploited the welfare of the custodial service guys to perpetuate this evil against the state. Prisons guys now sell recharge cards to inmates, sell weed, and cigarettes, help them buy and smuggle phones into the Centre and help to continue to recharge same. The corruption in these facilities must be investigated and punished. The racketeering going on has exposed the country to this mess. Finally, we should organise so we don’t further agonise. We must decentralise these facilities. The idea of a petty offender mingling with a terrorist must be probed. We must devise community service as a punitive measure for some lesser crimes to decongest our prisons. The prisons are way too congested and allow for crimes to thrive with the aid of those responsible to guard.”
The National Coordinator of the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN), Emmanuel Ikule, opines that prison breaks in Nigeria were gradually becoming a common trend, and if not checked immediately, it would only support the comments that the President had failed in his duty and supported these terrorists.
Ikule further said: “I wish to align with people who have said the government decided to free the terrorists in Kuje Prison this way! Since they could not do it formally as they had been doing before. That is why there was no resistance. They freed all their members and during this time what were the military and Air force doing? What were the Service chiefs doing? Sleeping on duty as always. The military has used its military might to fight civilians in Rivers, Benue, and Southeast but has failed to use its might for its primary purpose, which is to fight terrorists. What has happened to Nigeria’s Air force, and military? What has been their use in Nigeria? If they cannot handle terrorists on motorcycles, only taking reactionary measures, and what is holding the military to go all out to address these concerns once and for all.”
Ikule said the solutions to prison breaks and insecurity in Nigeria: “The President should resign because he has failed in his duty to protect lives and maintain peace and security in Nigeria. The service chiefs should be mandated by the NASS and given time duration to flush out all these criminals and failure to do so, they should be replaced. The service chiefs have a duty, they should not wait to be told before doing it. Waiting to be told or directed shows incompetence. There should be a financial audit of money given to the security agencies and what they have used it for. Corruption and fraud should be treated seriously to serve as a deterrent to others. There should be personnel audits and beeps on shirts of officers, institutions, and phones to monitor their conduct and punish, and replace compromised ones. The military should be mandated to carry out their primary work and leave policing work for the police. Security forces in Nigeria should learn to be proactive, not reactionary as has been the case.”
Ikule also suggested that security agencies in Nigeria should partner with other countries like the USA, to aid them, since they had not shown readiness or grit to address these concerns. He added that these security powerhouses should also train these security agencies on the use of tech in the fight against insurgency and terrorism in Nigeria.
“NASS should call the President, Minister of Defence, Service Chiefs to order, mandate them to work, failure to do so they should vote them out urgently. Citizens should also push for their representatives in the National Assembly to represent them in the call for the protection of life and property, not their pockets. They should also recall those failing to do the right thing. Community policing is important. Communities should elect their members to support securing their communities. Compromised community leaders should be replaced. Citizens should also get their PVCs and prevent Nigeria from going back to ‘the state of nature,’ where it is survival of the fittest, with persons holding arms to protect themselves from the failure of the government of the day to value or protect lives. Life is delicate, it cannot be replaced. Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder and if these atrocities are treated as always with kid gloves, we may not have a country!”
