NCS also admitted on PT Spaces on Monday that it received intelligence on possible attack on its facilities but it was not narrowed down to the Kuje Custodial Centre.
The Controller General of Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), Haliru Nababa, said the country’s prisons are not fortified enough to withstand the kind of attacks they have been subjected to in recent times.
He disclosed this on PREMIUM TIMES’ Twitter Spaces held on Monday to discuss the implications of jailbreaks on the nation’s security.
Despite intelligence reportedly provided earlier, Kuje Medium Prison was attacked last week by ISWAP with high explosives to free their members serving jail terms in the facility.
The attack led to the escape of over 800 inmates though a few of them have been recaptured in the last three days.
Sixty-eight of the escapees are members of Boko-Haram terrorist group.
A civil defence officer was killed on the night of the attack but no record of outstanding casualties on the part of the attackers who allegedly found help from insiders.
With Mr Nababa on the spot, the conversation, which lasted for close two hours, addressed some of the concerns of experts and Nigerians on the increasing terrorist attacks in the country.
Why Kuje terrorists succeed
While fielding questions from participants on the spaces, the NCS Chief admitted that they received intelligence on possible attack but the information was not narrowed down to the Kuje Custodial Centre.
He said he boosted the security on ground across prisons in the region but the capacity was not enough.
PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported that there were over 30 armed officials on ground during the Tuesday attack reportedly carried out by hundreds of members of the deadly terrorist group.
Mr Nababa stressed the need to fortify the prison facilities not only with highly skilled personnel but also with new structures that could withstand the new trend of crime in the country.
“The jail attacks are new to us since the emergence of ENDSARS. The NCS lacks the personnels. We need the deployment of ICT to see how we can ensure the prevention of the occurrences and the completion of the 3,000 capacity of Custodial centers in the six geographical political zones.
“The NCS infrastructure is not built to withstand this new trend of crime that is facing us but the 3,000 capacity will go a long way to forestall some of these attacks and then the procurement of operations vehicles because our guns cannot withstand what those people come with,” he said.
Insiders’ job
In the wake of the debate on the prison, there were speculation that the terrorists were led back into the Kuje prison by former inmates.
This speculation further gained ground when the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, during visit to facility, said the attack could only have been possible with the collaboration of insiders within the nation’s correctional system.
“The attack on this correctional facility is symptomatic of the failure of security failure. The attack is only a culmination of the failure.
“We were told that an estimated 300 terrorists attacked this facility. They came on foot, and I believe they should have been detected.
“In the first place, three hundred people will not come for an operation like this without planning. Planning must have taken a week, a month or a bit more,” he said.
PREMIUM TIMES investigation also revealed how porous the NCS recruitment process can be.
The report detailed how a former member of Boko-Haram, Wilberforce Yohanna, scaled through the prison’s vetting and became a staffer of the Yola New Custodial Centre.
The NCS denied knowledge of such staffer even though there was an internal memo indicating such.
“Willbeforce is a staff but not to our knowledge that he is a member of Boko Haram. The CG is investigating the member,” a deputy CG said during the PT TwitterSpaces.
Calls for CG’s resignation
Given the growing trend of jailbreaks under his watch, some attendees of the PT TwitterSpaces joined many more Nigerians to call for Mr Nababa’s resignation.
A popular cartoonist, Bulama Bukarti, raised concerns on the outcome of investigations conducted in respect to previous prison breaks in the country and number of persons found implicated in the process.
His questions were not adequately addressed by the top officials of the NCS on the spaces.
PREMIUM TIMES
