Inmates escape as explosion rocks Ado Ekiti prisons

Inmates escape as explosion rocks Ado Ekiti prisons

YET to be identified assailants on Sunday night stormed the Federal Prison in Afao Road, Ado Ekiti and shattered it with explosive devices believed to be a bomb and other dangerous weapons. 

   Governor Ayodele Fayose and the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) have condemned the attack of the prisons, saying that all evil perpetrators would fail.

  The assailants were said to have stormed the new prison with seven Hilux buses and chanting "Allah Akbaru" and shot at everything in sight before setting free the inmates.

  A prison official was reportedly shot during the attack while 20 security dogs were also killed by the assailants whose mission still remained unknown.

   Sources said the gunmen numbering over 65 arrived the prison around 10 p.m. and detonated the explosives, which forced the warders on duty to escape into nearby community for safety.

  Sources disclosed that a top official of State Prisons Command, who was rushing to the scene to see what was happening, was killed.

  The source said, in the process, scores of inmates serving various jail terms, including those on remands were set free by the invaders.

  The visibly shocked Ekiti State Controller of Prisons, Mr. Kehinde Fadipe described the attack as both "bombing and shooting" but added that he had not been briefed on the attack of any official of the State Prisons command.

  He said: "We are moving around to assess the situation. It was not a jail break, but an attack on the prison. The main entrance of the prison was broken. What happened is that we were attacked from outside not from within, they came massively with different weapons, they attacked our men on duty."

  He confirmed that some inmates were unduly released by the gunmen, saying the figure of those that escaped could not be ascertained as at press time.

  The controller who disclosed that some of the escaped inmates were already being re-arrested, adding that he had gotten assurances from other security agencies in the state that more would also be apprehended.

  Fadipe, however, dispelled the insinuation that it was Boko Haram insurgents that attacked his prisons.

  He wondered why Boko Haram people could have attacked the prisons when none of its members was an inmate at the Ado-Ekiti Federal Prisons.

   He also faulted the insinuation by the state owned media that members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) may have been responsible for the attack because its former leader, Niyi Adedipe was being detained in the prison.

   He said Adedipe was not among those that escaped.

   However, fully armed security men have intensified surveillance around the prisons premises and all adjourning roads in the area.

Journalists were also not allowed to enter the premises by stern-looking security men that took over the area after the attack.

  There were blood stains on the road leading to the prison giving the indication that some people might have been injured during the attack.

  As journalists were waiting for a media briefing, one of the inmates that escaped voluntarily returned. He said he ran out to save his life because of heavy shooting by the gun men that blew up the gates.

  Fayose said: "We regret the jail break perpetrated by the evil people, which led to the escape of many inmates. I want you to know that I have the grace of God in me and whoever plans against us shall be destroyed. My prayer is that they will not know peace." 

   The HURIWA asked the Federal Government to implement concrete and comprehensive security measures to bring to an end to the incessant bombing and violent prison attacks by suspected terrorists just as the group called for the removal of the Interior Minister, Mr. Abba Moro for alleged dereliction of duty.

   In a statement by the National Coordinator, Emanuel Onwubiko and the National Director of Media Affairs, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA in reaction to the spate of bombing campaign in Maiduguri, Borno State, Damaturu, the Yobe State capital and Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital by suspected armed Islamic terrorists, the rights group said President Jonathan must hearken to the voices of reason and of the greater majority of the Nigerians by dismissing Moro.

  They alleged that the minister had in the last one year showed monumental evidence of gross incompetence and the total lack of political will to make necessary changes in the administration and security of prison facilities across the country and ‘‘for his many failures recorded in the line of duty including the negligent mass slaughter of over a dozen job seeking Nigerian youths who were deceived to part with their hard earned money and were crammed into highly combustible and packed recruitment venues leading to series of nation wide bloody stampede.”

  They added: “HURIWA regret that a government that enjoys the mandate of the generality of Nigerians must implement the popular will of the people to protect them from unwarranted violence of all dimensions including the frequent violence visited on prison formations and the freeing into the larger society hardened suspected terrorists to unleash greater and more deadly violence on the civil populace.”

SOURCE: The Guardian