July 07, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the service chiefs to ensure that adequate measures are taken not only to investigate what happened at Kuje Prisons, but also to take steps to forestall the recurrence of such incidents.
THEWILL had reported that suspected terrorists on Tuesday night, blew up the Custodial Centre with dynamites and released over 800 inmates, including 64 Boko Haram terrorists detained in the facility.
Rising from an emergency Security meeting summoned by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, the Government admitted that the terrorists, who attacked the Correctional Centre, succeeded because of their large number and the superior fire power.
The Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammed Dingyadi, said this while responding to questions from State House Correspondents after briefing on the outcome of the emergency National Security Council meeting presided over by President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Dingyadi said the security personnel deployed to the facility did their best to repell the attack, but were subdued by the superior weaponry of the terrorists.
Asked why about 72 hours after the attack, none of the culprits had been caught, despite the deployment of surveillance helicopters, Dingyadi said: “You see these kind of things. They happen. And I want to assure you that all those who are supposed to play a role in ensuring that the attack is neutralised did the best that they could to neutralise it.
“I think what helped them (terrorists) was the number of people they came with and the superior weapons that they came with. And because nobody anticipated it, the few people who were there guarding the place could not withstand the number that they came with. I think that was what happened.
“Like I said, this investigation is still going on. You will only do good to allow the investigation to continue and maybe by the time they finish, you will be able to get the details of what actually happened and why it happened.
“Some of them have been killed. But I can’t give you the number and I don’t know the number. Because like they used to do, whenever one of them is killed, they take the corpse away and you cannot know the number of people who have been killed, but definitely quite a number of them were killed and many of them ran away with bullet wounds.”
The Minister explained that the meeting reviewed the security situation in the country, particularly the attack on the Kuje correctional facility, banditry attack in Katsina, as well as the various attacks on Shiroro local government of Niger State.
Dingyadi said the President was deeply concerned about the recent developments.
“Mr president is surprised that what happened in Kuje actually took place, in spite of all the security arrangements that have been made to ensure that such an incident does not happen.
“We are assuring the nation and Nigerians in general that arrangements have been made to ensure that full investigations are carried out to ensure that a repeat of these incidents will not occur.
“The service chiefs have been given very clear directives to ensure that adequate measures are taken not only to investigate what happened, but also to take steps to forestall the recurrence of such incidents.
“We call on Nigerians to continue to support the federal government, in its effort to ensure that we fight criminalities to finish and to ensure that this country is brought back to normalcy in a more secure and a more peaceful atmosphere.
“We are moving toward 2023, and the government is committed to ensuring that there’s peace, tranquillity to ensure a very credible, peaceful and transparent elections in Osun State come early next week”, he added.
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