Introduction
In the event of continuous jail break in the Federal Republic of Nigeria which more than ten events of its kind have been recorded in less than fifteen years, where more than 5000 inmates have been recorded to be set free by prison invaders.
It is as serious as reasonable to discuss and account for many events of its kind that Nigeria has witnessed, the attitude of Nigerian government towards the reoccurrence of this event, the recent prison attack, what might be the causes and the responsibility of both the government and individuals to proffer possible solution to this pathetic event, which would practically extinguish any event of prison break in Nigeria.
Jail Break and Matters Arising
Jail break in Nigeria is being incessantly reported since 2010 after the Bauchi prison break of September, 2010 that was perpetrated by gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram members which led to the escape of not fewer than 721 inmates.
Numerous jail break has since been successively reported after then, vide Ogun State Prisons Break at Sagamu Minimum Prison in January, 2013 where 20 inmates escaped, The Ondo State Prisons Break of June, 2013 which occurred at Olokuta Medium Prison in Akure that led to the escape of not less than 175 inmates, The Kogi State Prison break of November, 2014 at Federal Medium Security Prison in Koto Karffi, Kogi State where it was reported that 144 inmates escaped from custody, The Ekiti State Prison Break at the Federal Prison at Ado Ekiti in November, 2014 which made 341 inmates to escape from jail.
Minna Medium Prison was also attacked in December, 2014, where 270 inmates escaped, on the 10th day of October, in the same year 2014, 12 inmates escaped during Kirikiri Prison break in Lagos.
Two times attack was launched against Kuje Prison at the Federal Capital Territory on 24 June, 2016 which led to the escape of 2 high profile inmates and 29 August of the same year respectively.
Nevertheless, on the 19th day of October, 2020, some group of thugs pretended as ENDSARS protesters to attack a prison in Benin City and Oko in Edo State to free about 1,993 inmates.
1,844 inmates were freed as a result of an attack on Owerri prison which was believed to have been accomplished by Eastern Security Network (ESN) on the 5th day of April, 2021.
Immediately before the incident that we could regard as the third attack on Kuje Prison at the federal capital territory was Oyo State prison break at Abolongo medium custodian in Oyo town of Oyo State where 907 inmates escaped.
As dangerous and high risk as those escaped prisoners can be to the society, not all them have been re-arrested, though reports are being made to effect the recapture of some of them, yet, huge number of the escaped prisoners are still at large.
In furtherance to the aforelisted series of the occurrence of jail breaks in Nigeria, it is not pleasing to note that the jail break that occurred on the 6th day of July, 2022 is the third time that the same facility will be attacked.
Many reactions have followed the attack which was executed by Boko Haram terrorists with the aid of high explosives and sophisticated firearms, in the operation that took place within 9pm and 12-midnight that led to the escape of 994 inmates.
According to the report, an NSCDC officer was killed alongside four inmates during the operation of the dastardly attack. It is also appallingly made known to the public that 64 members of Book Haram that were kept in the same facility with other inmates are nowhere to be found.
Pursuance to an information made known by the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Government has created a provision to capture the biometric details of all the inmates in collaboration with NIMC which would enhance the concerned agency to be able to effectively track and arrest the escaped prisoners.
Their biometric data are also shared with the INTERPOL to make sure that they can be rearrested anywhere in the world.
While the federal government has done so well in the creation of this system, it can only be regarded as a reactive measure which is useful only after there has been a jail break, proactive measure which is extremely significant has been neglected which is cacophonically jeopardising the system.
The former which can always be useful on a platter of gold, while the latter, if properly taken care of will not only prevent the event of jail break, but also extinguished the occurrence and give it a proper restitution, and also save lives.
Inasmuch as there is poor provision of logistics to the security in the system and compromised intelligence within the facility, there are still more jail breaks to be experienced.
All the prison facilities are being congested which yield inability of prison officers to handle some sensitive affairs of the facility will also add to high risk of having more prison break in the nearest future.
Meanwhile, some prison officers are corrupted, they thereby emit compromised attitude to the welfare of the facility on grounds of ethnicity, religion, social status, cultural leanings, financial gain inter alia, another serious issue that leads to jail breach.
So many inmates are still awaiting trial, the percentage of inmates in this category is higher than the ones that are serving jail term and may be legally freed soon.
Also, some of the prison facilities are located in the city where people reside. This usually makes it easy for the inmates to easily mix with the residents whenever there is a prison break.
So many building of these prison facilities are of old structures built so many years ago, some were even built during the Colonial Administration in Nigeria which are not well erected to suit the standard and more sophisticated security condition of nowadays; it makes the invasion to be easily carried out by the invaders to break in and out of the prison without any hindrances.
Worthy to be noted is that, this pathetic event can be possibly prevented from future occurrence if all the prison facilities can be relocated to a remote and strategic area where it will be impossible for any escaped prisoner to make it out alive, or easily mix up with the people.
Alternative punitive measures should also be provided for the offenders to avert prison congestion as using of community service to punish the offenders can yield a good result as regards this.
Public sensitisation should be duly organised by the Federal Government to enlighten the citizens on moral and legal implication of accommodating an escaped prisoner, with a means to encourage them to handover anyone known to be an escaped prisoner to the appropriate government agency.
Extreme consciousness should be placed on prison securities to upgrade the logistics of the prison officers in terms of firearms and other equipment to be able to counterattack and repel any invasion anytime it occurs.
The security officers always take to their heels whenever there is an attack for the fact that the firearms being used by the prison security officers do not match the fatal and sophisticated weapon that the invaders bring forth to launch their attack.
Government of each state should be swift in signing death warrant of the prisoners on death row as soon as reasonable.
This will help in reducing the population of the prisoners in many congested prisons nationwide.
Conclusion
Every prison break is always blamed on the insecurity situation of the country, but there are more other factors that result in prison break.
All the factors are within the failure of the government to take a preventive measure, the government has rather done so much to be reactive, which does not mend the broken image of the country or raise the dead victim of various event of jail break.
There would be reason to be panicked, if the government keeps on showing less interest in preventing prison break occurrence in Nigeria. Shall we then be expecting so many prison breaks in not a long time?
Does that mean that prisoners who are serving jail term for the conviction of an offence or one facing trial should have hope that he will be broken out of the prison one day and be freed to commit another offence?
If the Government fails to protect common prisoners and thus prevent them from escaping, will there be no chaos as regards the respect for the rule of law, will this not lead to the absence of order, a good ground for domination of anarchy?
References
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/209491-breaking-confusion-gunshots-kuje-prison-riot-breaks.html
https://www.thecable.ng/fg-releases-names-pictures-of-escaped-inmates-from-oyo-prison/amp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thenationonlineng.net/history-of-prisons-breaks-in-nigeria/amp/
Abdulrauf Abdullahi Adebayo is a Law student, a teacher and a writer.
He can be reached on phone with 09034904883 and Email on AbdulraufAbdullahia@gmail.com