By Olusegun Olanrewaju
Nigeria’s Interior Minister, Rauf Aregesola, threw a timely bombshell last week. He told an already insecurity-weary nation that no fewer than 3,906 prisoners on the federal correctional list are now on the run.

The fleeing prisoners, he added, were part of the 4,369 inmates who had escaped during recent attacks on correctional centres, mainly through jailbreaks. It is not, strictly speaking, a piece of strange news, but confounding. Prisoners have always broken camps all over the world, but an added dimension has become worrisome in the nation: assisted jailbreaks, especially from the outside.

Though the minister was silent on this particular aspect, the assisted jailbreak paradigm has become very troubling in the wake of terrorism and other acts of banditry that have raised the template of insecurity in Nigeria.

At a media briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Media Team in Aso Rock, Abuja, Aregbesola had disclosed that of the 4,369 inmates who escaped from detention centres in the country from 2020 till date, following attacks by the ubiquitous ban of ‘unknown gunmen’, only 984 had been rearrested.

The minister expressed hope that the inmates at large would soon be tracked and recaptured, stressing that the biometrics of all custodial inmates in the country had been taken while working with the International Police (INTERPOL).

Aregbesola said: “How long can they continue to run from the state? The state is a patient bird. You can run but you can never hide. “We have their biometrics. Whenever and wherever they appear to transact any business, their cover will be blown.”

Trends
News of jailhouse breaks – violent and non-violent – are becoming common in Nigeria, and need urgent calls. This has followed familiar patterns set late in foreign climes like the scenario in the far-away Middle East, where in September, this year, a group of dare-devil jailbreakers tried to tunnel their way to freedom in a heavily-guarded Israeli prison facility.

In what was described as a rare case, six Palestinian prisoners had tunnelled their way into the prison. It took a massive search for the suspects to be re-arrested.

Also in October 2021, federal prosecutors in Maryland, USA, recommended a 25-year jail term for a group of neo-Nazi members, branding them ‘domestic terrorists’ preparing for a ‘civil war’ by discussing how to break the racist mess to kill one Dylan Roof who was on death row and talking about how to assassinate a Virginia lawmaker.

Also, this year, the US authorities reported that all the 29 inmates who escaped from federal lockups in 18 months in Florida, California, Louisiana, Texas, and Colorado remained at large. Reports said, at some of the institutions, doors are left unlocked, security cameras were broken and officials sometimes don’t notice an inmate is missing for hours.

At one Texas lockup, reports added, security is so lax that local law enforcement officials privately “All of the escapes happened at minimum-security federal prison camps, some of which don’t even have fences, and house inmates the Bureau of Prisons considers to be the lowest security risk.

“Anybody can escape from any camp any minute of any day,” said Jack Donson, a prison consultant, and former case manager at a federal prison in Otisville, New York. “They’re not secure facilities. They have no fence, no metal detectors.”

At home
Earlier this month, no fewer than 837 inmates were said to have escaped from the Oyo prison, out of which only 262 were recaptured. The Spokesman of the Oyo State Command of Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS), Olanrewaju Anjorin, said the 837 awaiting trial inmates had escaped from the Abolongo Correctional Centre in Oyo town when suspected gunmen attacked the facility. In a statement in Ibadan, Anjorin attributed the escape to activities of suspected gunmen who invaded the facility in the early hours of a day of prayers, Friday, after using dynamite to blast the wall.

The spokesman sounded it clear that the inmates were freed by attackers, pointing out that the cell housing the convicts and the inmates had not been vandalised, adding that 575 escapees were still at large. “The invaders arrived at the centre heavily armed with sophisticated weapons, and after a fierce encounter with the officers on guard, they gained entrance into the yard, using dynamite to blast the wall. “All the awaiting trial detainees were forced out of custody, the cells housing the convicts and the female inmates were not vandalised.

The Oyo Custodial Centre was established in 2007 with a capacity of 160 inmates but had a total population of 907 at the time of the attack. “Of this number, awaiting trial persons were 837 representing 92 per cent with just 64 convicts,” Anjorin said.

Another case of prison escape, the terrorism-feared case also happened in Kabba, Kogi State, in September 2021. No fewer than 240 inmates at the Medium Security Custodial Centre (MSCC) in the town escaped from jail following an attack on the facility by unidentified heavy gunmen.

The attackers, who were said to have arrived in their numbers at another weekend at the custodial facility (prison), and engaged the armed guards in a fierce gun battle. Spokesman of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), Mr Francis Enobore, in a communique stated that the attack took place at about midnight on a Sunday, September 12.

Enobore said that the Comptroller–General, Haliru Nababa, had ordered that a recapture procedure be immediately activated, and detailed investigation carried out even as he led a team to assess the situation at the facility. The Kabba MSCC was established in 2008 with a capacity of only 200.

Frightening timeline: Terrorism?
Investigations show that there have been several reported cases of large prison outbreaks in recent times, with many coming a few months after gunmen, on April 5, 2021, attacked the NCoS and police headquarters in Imo State, freeing 1,844 inmates.

The invading hoodlums thereafter set the facilities ablaze and burnt down the Imo State Police Command headquarters with almost all the vehicles parked at the command’s headquarters razed.

Reports said a similar attack was carried out at the correctional centre in Ubiaja, Edo State but the jailbreak was foiled by officers at the facility.

The list of jailbreaks is long. At Agodi prison in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital it was reported that a riot triggered by inmates at the Minimum Security Prison (MSP) in Ibadan on September 11, 2007, resulted in the killing of eight inmates in an attempt to escape.

On September 7, 2010, in Bauchi, gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram terrorists attacked the prison in the state capital, opening the door for 721 inmates to escape, leaving five killed and six injured. It was the turn of Yobe on June 2, 2012, when suspected Boko Haram insurgents attacked the Damaturu prison, freeing 40 inmates.

In Ondo on June 30, 2013, 50 gunmen attacked the MSP in Akure and let loose 175 prisoners. Two persons were killed in the attack. Ogun State lost 20 inmates to escapees at the Shagamu Minimum Prison on January 4, 2013.

Boko Haram terrorists were described as the brains behind the Koton-Karfe prison attack on November 2, 2014, in which 144 prisoners were freed. One inmate died in the incident. The facility was attacked again in October 2019, during which about 230 inmates reportedly fled.

Ekiti state became the theatre of escape on November 30, 2014, when a prison was attacked at Ado-Ekiti by gunmen. No fewer than 341 prisoners escaped.

In Niger State 270 inmates were reportedly released at Minna Prison on December 6, 2014, followed by Lagos on October 10, the same year when a jailbreak occurred at the Kikikiri Medium Prison. Twenty prisoners lost their lives while 80 were injured and 12 inmates escaped from the facility. In Niger State, gunmen attacked a medium prison in Minna and broke out over 200 inmates on June 3, 2018.

Jailbreaks were also reported, with varying degrees of losses, in Edo, Lagos (Ikoyi Prison), Ondo (Okitipupa), Zaria, (Kaduna State, prompted by rioters after post-election violence), among others. On October 27, 2012, six inmates were killed at the Ahoada prison during an attempted jailbreak and in Delta on October 22, a prison official killed as soldiers foiled an attempted jailbreak in Warri.

On March 18, 2021, unknown gunmen killed two prison officials while conveying inmates to court in Anambra, while in Plateau State, on July 23, 2020, gunmen attacked a convoy of the correctional service and freed six inmates on high court premises in Barkin Ladi local government area.

Overwhelmed security
Nigerian security forces have been overwhelmed and had to deal with attacks by terrorists, bandits, and even kidnappers in the northern part of the country, including the middle belt.

Experts have argued that the number of escapees in the correctional centres is raising serious concerns that the agencies responsible for checking the trend have long been “besieged by chronic mismanagement, misconduct and a severe staffing crisis is failing at performing its most basic function: keeping prisoners in prison.”

The Owerri jailbreak was to prove the litmus test that things were going out of hand in keeping the prisons safe and from terrorists.

President Muhammadu Buhari described the Owerri jailbreak as a terrorist attack and ordered a violent crackdown on suspected members of the separatist group, Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), which, however, denied responsibility.

It would amount to an understatement that jailbreaks and attacks on prison officials have become a pastime for criminals and enemies in Nigeria.

Often overcrowded, the correctional centres are picked for notoriety in corruption and inhumane treatment of inmates.

A report said, “Recent uprisings in various prisons across the country have had at least 45 inmates killed. The death toll could be higher than that as government officials often play down the figures of casualty.”

Between 2007 and 2021, no fewer than 3,600 inmates have been reported to have escaped from different prisons between 2007 and 2021, majorly with the aid of suspected Boko Haram terrorists and other criminal elements in the country., with official reports of rearrests.

And, because the Nigerian prison authorities have, over the years, failed to put out public notices of inmates on the run, or even put their mugshots on the NCoS official website, millions of lives have been put in danger.

This, perhaps, informed Minister Aregbesola’s alarm raised on Thursday. The problem is compounded by abject and archaic record-keeping, which often leads to the administrative blocks of correctional centre buildings sometimes being targeted in jailbreaks.

Some records from the prison administration in 2018 showed that the total population of inmates, including “pre-trial detainees and remand prisoners” in the 240 establishments, stood at 67,631. The official holding capacity is put at 50,153, “which shows that the occupancy level based on official capacity is 146.8 per cent.

Also, according to reports, over 50,000 of the country’s prison inmates were awaiting trial.

Causes
A Lagos-based lawyer, Funsho Ojumoro, attributes the increase in jailbreaks in the country to the increased activities of bandits and the general insecurity stalking the land. These people (inmates are already in the prison, you know, and they can do anything, anything, to get freed,” he told ThisNigeria on phone at the weekend.

According to him, the situation is compounded because the atmosphere in the prison yard, as well as the judicial system, “is not conducive”.

A former inmate’s perspective
A former inmate at the Kirikiri Maximum Prison in Lagos, who craved anonymity bared his mind to ThisNigeria at the weekend. Verbatim, he discloses, in vernacular: “It is not the inmates who break prisons, it is mainly protesters (from outside). I was at Imo when they announced the jailbreak there. I was at Concord Hotel, Owerri, between May and June.

“At around 9.10pm, we suddenly heard gunshots. There was pandemonium and mayhem. Later in the morning, we heard they had burnt down the governor’s houses and about nine police stations.

“Immediately after, they burnt the prison and freed prisoners. There was a curfew. The attackers who invaded the prison or what they call correctional centres were outsiders, maybe terrorists.

“I do not know about the Kabba jailbreak but the fact I know as a former inmate is that it is not prisoners who organise jailbreaks. Prisoners don’t have the power. They do not have gadgets, you are not armed.

“But the story is different if you have people outside that are connected, like terrorists. Their sponsors will say, “ah, my ‘son’ will not ‘sewon’ (be a prisoner). They will bribe the police on the roads and then proceed to burn the main gate.

“They will not only set that person free. They will allow others to escape to mask the intention. Yes, tunnelling is possible, but it has to be from the outside so that nobody would know.

Action points
Stopping jailbreaks will require concerted efforts. According to the interviewed ex-inmate, the larger onus rests on the government. The government needs a leader who will arrest the sponsors,” he said, adding, they are arresting the likes of Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu and branding them as terrorists, those who are fighting for the rights and freedom of their people, and the people know.

“They have to improve the conditions in the prisons that make people want to run away. Let me give you an instance, as I was coming here, driving my vehicle, the police stopped me as they would do to others, where’s your ID card, follow me to the station. You have to bribe your way out or you may find yourself in detention.

“At Kirikiri I met somebody who has been in detention for 18 years simply because he has at a crime scene where his father’s friend had been shot by an unknown person and the police found the man thereafter being sent on an errand.

“The man will not be happy to die in prison. He would not mind attempting anything, even if he would die on the road. What the terrorists do is bribe the security agents and allow those who have the means to break in after they had replaced their man with another unfortunate fellow. “If he knows a crook and gang, he will not mind breaking down the prison, even through tunnelling. Or even killing the warder taking them to the farm or for artisanship in the bush.”

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Review of prison security
The Federal Government says it is looking into the problem by inaugurating a “vulnerability audit” of the country’s prisons, after multiple jailbreaks in recent months.

A spokesman to the Interior Minister, Rauf Aregbesola, while inaugurating the audit on Friday, said the government’s report will identify the fault lines in the security setup and penetration levels of the custodial centres.

“The vulnerability audit we have inaugurated today will identify the weakness in our security setup and will help to put in place an effective structure to assist us in better securing our facilities against future external aggression,” the statement from the minister’s office was as saying.