Kuje Prison Attack: Senate President Ahmad Lawan Fumes, Explains What Really Happened
- The attack on the Kuje Medium Security Custodial Centre has been described as an incident that could only have occured with the help of insiders
- This was disclosed by the president of the Nigerian Senate, Ahmad Lawan on Thursday, July 7, during a visit to a facility
- According to Lawan, the attack on this correctional facility is symptomatic of the failure of security failure
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The president of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has said that Tuesday’s attack on the Kuje Medium Security Custodial Centre by terrorists speaks volumes about the failure of Nigeria's security architecture.
Speaking on Thursday, July 7 during a visit to the facility to assess the level of attack by the terrorists, the Senate president said that such an incident could only have been possible with the collaboration of insiders within the nation’s correctional system.
Source: UGC
Lawmakers on the Senate delegation, which also had some members of the committee on national security and intelligence, were conducted around the facility by the comptroller-general of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Haliru Nababa.
Lawan said:
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"The attack on this correctional facility is symptomatic of the failure of security failure. The attack is only a culmination of the failure.
“We were told that an estimated 300 terrorists attacked this facility. They came on foot, and I believe they should have been detected.
“In the first place, three hundred people will not come for an operation like this without planning. Planning must have taken a week, a month or a bit more.
“I believe that our security agencies should have picked this from their tracking systems in the FCT."
Lawan faulted the Nigerian Correctional Service for not providing Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) at the Kuje facility and others across the country.
The Senate president asked the CG of the NCS to include a request for the provision of CCTV across maximum and medium correctional centres across the country in its 2023 budget proposal to the National Assembly for approval.
His words:
“Secondly, having gone round the facility itself, we are disappointed that this facility does not have Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras, something that would record and give you details of what is happening and sometimes record the events.
“This is a medium-security custodial centre, how on earth in the FCT facility of this magnitude we don’t have CCTV? It means we can say that all other medium security centres across the country do not have CCTV."
No record of the attack at the Kuje Correctional Facility
Adding that is disappointing that there is no record of the attack on the facility except narration or word of mouth from residents living around the area, Lawan there is a need to improve security in every facility across the country.
He added:
“Thirdly, going from one cell to another to release people, specifically, those that are known to be insurgents, tells a lot of stories.
“It may not be far away from an insider job, someone who is either working in this place or must have worked here.
“I think we have to look deeper into what happened, so that we find the culprits, because when things like this happen, then there should be sanctions.
“Where people fail to do their job properly, and they have been given that responsibility, they should be asked to take responsibility.
“If people don’t take responsibility for their failure, then it means nobody would bother to do what is expected of their office or the job that the person has been given.
“Having this kind of situation today in the FCT, that we have criminals who are free now all over the city is very dangerous and you can never have peace of mind.
“The FCT has the seat of government, and today that seat is not safe. So, we have to do whatever it takes to get everybody back.”
The Senate president further tasked the security agencies to ensure that the insurgents who escaped from the Kuje medium security custodial centre are found and brought back.
Briefing the lawmakers earlier, the commanding officer of the Nigerian Army Battalion in Gwagwalada, Lieutenant Colonel Adisa, told the Senate leadership that over three hundred insurgents were behind Tuesday’s attack on the Kuje medium security custodial facility.
Adisa said confirmed that only a total of fifty security personnel were on the ground when the terrorists armed with IEDs stormed the facility to release the insurgents.
Source: Legit.ng
