Stop the jailbreaks

On Sunday, November 28, a group of armed men stormed the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Jos, Plateau State. At the main gate, they engaged the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) armed personnel in a gun battle before breaking into the prison compound. Spokesman of the NCoS, Francis Enobore, said in the troubling account that  sister […]

On Sunday, November 28, a group of armed men stormed the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Jos, Plateau State. At the main gate, they engaged the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) armed personnel in a gun battle before breaking into the prison compound.

Spokesman of the NCoS, Francis Enobore, said in the troubling account that  sister security services were mobilized to assist the armed guards to cordon the perimeter wall and the entire area. Yet, all the invading gunmen but one escaped with 262 inmates, though 10 of the inmates were re-arrested.

The NCoS and sister security agencies killed one of the attackers who was held up in the prison while  the gunmen killed nine inmates and one NCoS armed squad personnel. Another NCoS personnel and six inmates were injured.

The jailbreak in Jos is the 15th incident in the last one year in Nigeria, with eight successful. A record 5,238 inmates escaped from the jailbreaks.

Currently, Nigeria has maximum custodial facilities capacity for 57,278 inmates. But of at last week, there was a total population of 68,747 inmates, made up of 67,422 males and 1,325 females, 18 per cent above capacity.

And out of the total 50,992 inmates, representing 74 per cent of the total population, are awaiting-trial while only 17,755 inmates, which is mere 26 per cent, are actual convicts.

The Jos centre, at the time of the attack, had 1,060 inmates, comprising 560 pre-trial detainees and 500 convicts.

But the Jos jailbreak isn’t about the number of inmates. The intriguing aspects are the issues it raised. Did the inmates escape from the prison gates or did they break the walls? And how come the gunshots did not arouse the attention of personnel of the security agencies around the prison facility? How did such a large number of prisoners leave the vicinity without a trace?

This is because the jailbreak took place in a supposedly secured area, being surrounded by the headquarters of the Department of State Security (DSS), which is across the fence, the Police Area Command and barracks, the Police ‘A’ Division, Plateau State Police headquarters, Plateau State Prison Command headquarters, the Plateau State High Court complex and the headquarters of Operation Safe Haven.

Perhaps, this is time for some real explanations by the security operatives on how a group of gunmen could easily infiltrate such a security zone, perpetuate the dastardly act of rescuing its priced inmate colleagues and escape. Something is actually not right here. There must be answers as this particular jailbreak, like others before it, is the shame of a nation, an embarrassment of monumental proportion. We call for a judicial inquiry as this is a jailbreak too many.

The Controller-General of NCoS, Haliru Nababa, must step up to account, along with his officers and men. Not only must all the perpetrators of the prison invasion and the ones before it be hunted down, they must face the full wrath of the law. It is also time for some soul searching and in-house cleaning by the correctional service.

An alarming decrepitude of dysfunctionality shouldn’t be made normal, otherwise, it would seem like collaboration. Therefore, there must be new demands of accountability by officials of the correctional service, beginning with the Federal Ministry of Interior, down to the Correctional Service headquarters, both at federal and state levels.

Let Nigerians know the punishment for any official whose negligence caused such regular invasions or whose negligence made the escape of even one inmate possible.

The NCOs and Interior Ministry must work out insurance policy for all personnel of the custodial centres, including the payment of hazard allowances to boost their morale. There must be a modernization of the prisons to meet modern trends as some of them were built before Nigeria’s independence.

Also, compensation must be paid to families of all who died in the jailbreaks as the state failed in its duty of protecting them. This must include the inmates who were killed while serving their terms.

Concerted efforts should be made to reduce the awaiting-trial inmates. In addition, high profile inmates should be relocated to only maximum prisons where there is adequate security.