The founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Fisayo Soyombo, has said that an insider collusion may have led to the escape of over 119 prisoners from a prison facility in Suleja on Wednesday, as he said that even though a wall collapsed, it should not have been easy for prisoners, at that number, to escape the facility.
However, a former Public Relations Officer for the Nigerian Correctional Service, Francis Enobore, has said that the conditions that led to the escape of the prisoners were simply unfortunate as the personnel in the correctional facilities are not enough, and as such, were not able to respond to the emergency as it occurred.
In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, Soyombo, who is also an investigative journalist, speaking on the mass escape of prisoners, said, “If there is a downpour and a wall collapses, ideally, it’s not enough to make prisoners escape, because if you’ve been to a typical Nigerian prison, you’ll have security officials lining the circumference of the prison at every point in time, such that even if someone threw the gates of the prison open, you would think twice before attempting to escape. You have officials of the police, the NSCDC, at least 5 security agencies have officials with guns circling the prison, such that even if the gates were thrown open, you will think twice.
“So, it’s strange to me that because there was a downpour, hundreds of inmates thought that they could escape without losing their lives, and they did, and that’s really strange to me. Typically, it’s hard to have a jailbreak without insider collusion. It’s really hard because I’ve been there, it’s not just about the opportunity to escape, it’s the fear, it’s the understanding that you can get shot.”
Soyombo went on to speak on the state of the building which housed the correctional facility as he said, “I read a report in the Guardian Newspaper quoting an unnamed prison service official saying the wall that collapsed was built with inferior facilities. The sand, the blocks were substandard, and attention was drawn to the management. Which brings attention to the wider rot in the country, that people get paid for projects, use substandard products, and they get away with it, the people who allocate the contract, they get away with it, the people who execute the contracts get away with it. So, it shows a deeper rot that we can’t trust the people who execute projects in this country.”
He then, regarding the not-yet-released names of the escaped inmates, said, “It’s 48 hours after the incident, after the visit of the minister, he said the government will release the names of the inmates. Why has it taken 48 hours for the government to publish the names of inmates? Why? Do they suddenly have to go and look for the names? Do they suddenly have to go and look for the pictures?”
However, Francis Enobore, in response to Soyombo’s stance that an internal collusion led to the jailbreak, said, “We have always said this that the personnel we have on ground is so small that they are not able to respond swiftly to situations of emergencies like we have just had, even though this one happened in the night. Under heavy rainfall, a wall has collapsed, the immediate concern of the officer in charge and indeed any other custodial officer around is to ensure that no inmate is trapped in the rubble. It’s in the night, you can barely see who is running and who is going somewhere. And it’s in a place that is so built up with civil population that you cannot begin to shoot sporadically.
“These are the issues some people that are giving it different narratives have not considered. If they begin to shoot indiscriminately in attempt to ensure that no inmate escapes, the chances are that you kill innocent persons that are within the environment. So we need to also interrogate the need to have adequate personnel.”
Enobore also addressed the manner in which security agencies were going about recapturing the escaped inmates, saying, “On the part of the Nigerian Correctional Service, I am aware that several interventions talking about IT rejuvenation to ensure that the particulars of every prisoner is well captured. That has been ongoing for a couple of years. We have a robust data bank of all inmates in our custody.
“But the question is, what do you do with the information? On several occasions, I’ve had the opportunity of interrogating these processes, and said, look, in other climes, what works magic is sharing information about prisoners so that you reduce the incentive for prisoners to want to escape from custody. Because if you know you leave today, tomorrow you’ll be arrested, the urge to escape will reduce.
“If we are able to synchronise our data with other platforms that carry out e-transactions, for instance, the NFIU, the banks, giant shopping malls, filling stations and all of that, and then you red flag their identities, it will be much easier for them to be rearrested. I think we should be thinking of going beyond these traditional methods of running after escapees and publishing pictures and all of that.”
Enobore then urged the federal government to put more funds into security as he said, “I want to also appeal to the federal government. Security is not cheap, we have to face the fact. All the Sulejas, efforts should be made to revisit them. The 3000-capacity custodial centre that is under construction, enough funds should be provided to complete them.
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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