TUNDE AJAJA examines how the government is contributing to the recurrent jailbreaks in Nigeria, the short and long-term consequences and the way forward

Reactions have continued to flood the media space since Monday when gunmen stormed Owerri, the Imo State capital, broke into the Custodial Centre with the aid of explosives and freed no fewer than 1,844 inmates.

As if the unlawful release of such a huge number of inmates – some guilty of very serious crimes – into the society wasn’t dangerous enough, the miscreants also attacked and razed the state police headquarters.

A security source even told The PUNCH that the hoodlums chanted solidarity songs at the Government House Roundabout for about 30 minutes before attacking the facilities.

At the end of the invasion, 35 inmates stayed back and didn’t escape during the attack while less than 100 inmates had returned, leaving a huge number of inmates roaming the streets. The implication of this cannot be overemphasised.

An incident after the jailbreak in Edo State in October 2020 is classic for reference here. One of the inmates, who escaped from the Oko Correctional Centre in the state during the violence that erupted after hoodlums hijacked the #EndSARS protest, went to kill the person who stood as the prosecution witness during his trial.

The then Commissioner of Police, Babatunde Kokumo, said while parading the inmate and other suspects, “after having escaped from the Oko Correctional Centre, he ran back to his village on the same day to kill the person who stood as a prosecution witness in the case that took him to the correctional centre, but he has been arrested.”

A security practitioner and fellow, Institute of Security Nigeria, Mr Chigozie Ubani, pointed out that society could be imperilled by the criminal release of the inmates, some of whom he said could be recidivists.

Ubani, who is the Managing Director of Symbiotic Business Solutions Limited and Chief Operating Officer at SBS Security Technologies, said, “The implication is largely grievous. There are people who are so hardened and hardly feel remorse for the offences they committed even when they have been found guilty or they confess to the crime.

“If such a person comes back to the society with a lot of vengeance, it could be a problem. There are recidivists and so to a large extent, society is imperilled. It is not in our interest that inmates are set free in this manner because some of them may go back to either the crime that took them to the correctional centre or commit the worst crimes. So, it is a big security threat.”

According to Ubani, the situation is even dire because they tend to go to other places than remain in the jurisdiction that put them in the centre. “It’s not good for us and I wish it never happened,” he added.

Ubani said Nigerians should do whatever they could, like volunteering information to the security agencies to be able to track the inmates, for the safety of all.

“However, the earlier we correct whatever has led to this the better for us as a people,” he added.

To some, the jailbreak in Imo was just another episode in the exploitation of the weak infrastructure in Nigeria’s old correctional centres, perhaps aided this time round by the festering insecurity.

Meanwhile, as condemnable as the invasion was, jailbreak is not new in Nigeria.

Within the last 10 years, for example, there have been several jailbreaks in the country.

Starting with the most recent; just when the dust raised by the Imo incident had yet to settle, there was another attempted jailbreak at the Bauchi Custodial Centre on Friday. According to the spokesperson for the National Correctional Service in the state, Abubakar Algwallary, the attack, which left two officers of the service injured from gunshots, was a fallout of the Owerri incident.

Also, in the midst of the violence that followed the hijacked #EndSARS protests in October 2020, hoodlums on October 19 freed no fewer than 1,993 inmates from the Oko and Benin correctional centres, both in Edo State.

Three days after in Ondo State, hoodlums broke into the NCoS centre in the Okitipupa Local Government Area and freed about 58 inmates, burnt vehicles and injured some staff members.

While the dust raised by that had yet to settle, security agents were able to foil the attempt by some hoodlums to break into the Ikoyi Correctional Centre in Lagos on the same day.

There are more examples. On June 3, 2018, in Niger State, armed men attacked the Medium-Security Correctional Centre in the Tunga area of Minna, the state capital, freeing over 200 inmates. Only 28 were rearrested.

On August 9, 2016, no fewer than 15 inmates at the Nsukka Correctional Centre in Enugu State broke out of their cells and escaped.

Similarly on July 29, 2016, 13 inmates escaped during a jailbreak at the Koton/Karfe Correctional Centre while on June 24, 2016, two inmates awaiting trial escaped at the Kuje Medium Correctional Centre at the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

These are just a few among the jailbreaks in Nigeria, whereas correctional centres should be one of the most secured facilities because they house convicted criminals, including the impenitent ones, who would pose a grave danger to the society if opportune to find their way out of the confinement.

Different people have given the latest one in Imo State different names. To the President, it was an act of terrorism; to the Vice-President, it was a cowardly act; to the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, it’s the worst in Nigeria’s history and to the governor of the state, Hope Uzondimma, it was a dastardly act sponsored by politicians to bring down the government of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Regardless of the colouration given to it, the rate of jailbreak in the country is becoming alarming and some security analysts believe that if nothing was done about it, there could be more jailbreaks. The analysts who spoke to our correspondent on the issue tied it to an expression of anger against bad governance by some aggrieved persons and poor security.

They said even though there is no excuse for such lawless behaviour, the perceived double standard by the ruling class might continue to trigger such.

Asked what could be causing the attacks on correctional centres, a security consultant, John Eweliku, tied it to the people’s disenchantment with the government, laxity on the part of the security agencies, poor intelligence gathering and the poor security at the various correctional centres.

He said, “It’s definitely disturbing. The first thing is that it has to do with the way the youth view government’s actions and inactions, especially in things that affect them. They clearly are very tired of being patient with the government in the way it is handling their affairs.”

Speaking further to the issue, he stated, “Who are these gunmen and why have they not been identified before now? What happened to intelligence gathering? What were the Department of State Services, the police and the Nigeria Correctional Service doing? We are talking about the police headquarters here. What happened to the Army?

“What this means is that once the people go to sleep, these security agents also go to sleep, with the false assumption that the state is peaceful. For me, the security agents are to be blamed. It is unheard of that the state headquarters of the police was invaded and torched.”

Eweliku wondered how a police formation and correctional service could be without having adequate armed persons manning their security gates to be able to repel any attack. He argued that the attack showed that nobody was safe and everybody had to rely on God.

Perhaps, the attacks could have been repelled if correctional centres had modern security measures in place, but Eweliku argued that apart from the absence of modern security checks, the warders might be poorly armed to repel external aggression.

He added, “The correctional centres are not well protected and they are congested. Our security agents really have to sit up,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Vice-President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, admitted the sorry state of the correctional centres on February 1, 2018 when he said of the Port Harcourt correctional centre, “There is no room for prisoners and anybody who goes into that place as a human being is coming out as an animal. To say the least, it is very disturbing and we must do something about the prisons.”

To Ubani, the reasons for the jailbreaks are both sociological and issues around poor security.

He explained that correctional centres are classified based on the calibre of inmates, both convicted or awaiting trial, to be kept in such facilities, which would influence the level of security to be put in place.

He said, “I have been to a couple of them and I found out that it would be easy to break into some of these facilities without any serious challenge.

“As you begin to arrest and detain vicious kidnappers, armed robbers, high-profile individuals, who have the means to sponsor attack on correctional centres, secessionists who have been outlawed and the other elements from neighbouring countries who come here and cause you upgrade your security.”

He stressed that funding for security had been very low and was worrisome, making the centres vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Ubani argued that injustice in the system is a more potent reason for the jailbreaks, noting that the only way out was for the law to treat everybody equally.

He said, “Let it be known that I’m not justifying what they have done and I’m not saying they were right, but we need to examine the issues dispassionately to know why it’s becoming a norm in the Nigerian society.

“When a society is running on a template of multiple layers of injustice, it becomes very difficult to justify incarceration and so it will be difficult to maintain law and order in all spheres of that society. We have moved to a point where some people now believe that it is morally unjustifiable for any government to put anybody in correctional centres.

“Why? People who steal government money find their way out of jail without serving their term. It’s just like telling the people times are hard and the leaders live in opulence and drive expensive SUVs. It makes no sense. I’m using a gamut of analogies to say that there is anger and perceived injustice in the way the law is applied.

“Right now, some people in correctional centres feel they are being wrongly incarcerated even when they are guilty of the offences, because those who are highly connected are getting away with the same offences or even more heinous offences. With this, they now gang-up against the society.”

He said the way to correct this is to make everybody equal before the law regardless of where they come from, so as to reduce the anger against the system. He added that it was important for security agents to focus on their jobs.

He said, “If we want to correct these things, we have to adopt one template so the law can be the same across the six geopolitical zones, so that whatever happens to a man who steals a goat in Cross River State is the same as the person who does the same thing in Zamfara State. Once we do that, it becomes difficult for anybody to gang up against the system, walk in brazenly and break into the correctional centres. This is beyond insecurity; it’s a serious problem facing the integrity of the union.

“Also, we need to get our security men to know why they are in those uniforms. The level of business transactions going on in every security outfit in this country is embarrassingly alarming and these are major distractions for us. We need them to sit up, reduce business transactions and face the core duty of protecting lives and property.”

He noted that the old infrastructure makes jailbreaks easier because it increases their vulnerability but that it is only a reflection of the general infrastructural collapse.

He said, “We have not invested in our correctional centres and there is a general, progressive decay of our society, which is part of the problem. As I said, this is happening because some people feel their people there are unjustly incarcerated when leaders are doing worse things.”

Ubani stressed that there was the need to improve infrastructure because increasingly there are variants of criminals in the centres, which should necessitate frequent upgrading of the facilities and a periodic risk and vulnerability assessment of the centres.

He added, “As you bring in new inmates, you look at the kind of crimes they are accused of committing, which would determine the level of upgrade that should be done there. Your CCTV cameras should have face recognition feature, so that even if people break away, it is easy for you to apprehend them.”

Also, a security analyst and Chairman, Trans-World Security Systems Ltd., Ona Ekhomu, traced the Imo attack to possible retaliation by persons sympathetic to those attacked in Orlu by the military recently and the weak security at the correctional centre.

He said, “The most obvious reason any group would want to break into a prison is to free its people and have an instant army. The army invaded Orlu, arrested people and maybe put some in that same facility. What do you think they went to do? They went to free their guys. You don’t even need to be an analyst to see that; it’s so simple.

“It’s an existential fact. I think that was the main motivation; release their people and build up an army and be ready for belligerence. But what is facilitating it, because in security analysis, we look at vulnerability, so there must be a weakness they are exploiting? If the correctional centres are heavily protected and unassailable, they wouldn’t be able to break into it.” (Sunday PUNCH)

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