A least 10 of the over 100 prisoners that escaped a prison facility in Suleja, Niger State, after a heavy downpour damaged the correctional facility on Wednesday, have been re-arrested.
A spokesperson for the medium-security jail, Adamu Duza, said in a statement on Thursday that the downpour, which lasted for several hours, destroyed the perimeter wall and neighbouring structures.
With the assistance of other security agencies, service agents were pursuing the fugitives and have been able to, so far, apprehend 10 of them.
“We are in hot chase to recapture the rest,” Duza said, and assured the public that the police were in control of the situation asking public to report any suspicious movement.
“The public is further enjoined to look out for the fleeing inmates and report any suspicious movement to the nearest security agency,” he said.
In recent time in Nigeria, prison breaks have grown to be a serious security concern, as overcrowding, underfunding, and inadequate security measures in these prisons have made the possibility of breaking out easy for inmates.
Due to poor infrastructure and terrorist attacks, thousands of prisoners have escaped in recent years. One of such incident occurred in July 2022, when the Islamic State attacked a high-security prison in Abuja, freeing some 440 prisoners.
According to Duza, this could be attributed to the state of the facilities, noting, “The Service is not unmindful of the fact that many of its facilities were built during the colonial era, and that they are old and weak.”
The agency is making frantic efforts to update its jail system, building six new facilities with a combined capacity of 3,000, and renovating the ones it already has, he said.
