As controversies continue to trail the Kuje jailbreak, it has been discovered that high-profile Boko Haram members and bandits are among the fleeing inmates.
BizWatch Nigeria recalls that in the late hours of Tuesday, July 5, 2022, some yet-to-be-identified gunmen attacked the Kuje prison and set free the inmates.
In the course of the attack, a civil defence official lost his life and many officials of the correctional facility.
Other security operatives reportedly sustained different degrees of injuries during the attack.
“The Kuje prison has been compromised with explosives by the invading terrorist. They stormed the facility around 10.05 pm. They were heavily armed. At least 900 inmates escaped,” a source was quoted as saying.
The source, who said the facility had over 1,000 inmates at the time of the attack, disclosed that 60 of the escapees have been arrested.
“The invaders used dynamites and destroyed the heavily fortified facility, including the Central Terrorism Unit (CTU), freeing all the terrorists there,” the source added.
The attackers reportedly ran out of dynamites after operating for two hours.
President Muhammadu Buhari has, however, visited the prison facility hours after the attack.
At the time Buhari visited, about 443 inmates are still at large while another 443 have been recaptured.
Nigeria has recorded multiple jail breaks under the current administration, but this is the first major attack on a prison in the nation’s capital under Buhari’s watch.
In 2016, there was a riot at Kuje Prison but the situation was brought under control.
