“HOT CHASE” AFTER MORE THAN 100 INMATES ESCAPE FROM NIGERIA PRISON

Fri 26 April 2024:

Over 100 prisoners have escaped from a jail in Nigeria that is close to the capital city of Abuja after heavy rains overnight damaged some of the building.

According to prisons spokesman Adamu Duza, the several-hour-long downpour on Wednesday night damaged the medium-security prison’s perimeter fence in the town of Suleja, Niger state, “giving way to the escape of a total of 118 inmates from the facility”.

The prison service and other agencies were able to apprehend 10 of the fugitive inmates. “We are in hot chase to recapture the rest,” Duza went on to say.

“The public is further enjoined to look out for the fleeing inmates and report any suspicious movement to the nearest security agency,” he added.

Duza gave no details on the identities or affiliation of the escaped prisoners, but in the past members of the Boko Haram armed group have been locked up in Suleja prison.

Duza said the prison service was making “frantic efforts” to modernise its prisons, including the construction of six 3,000-capacity facilities and the revamping of existing ones.

Thousands of inmates have escaped in recent years due to weak infrastructure and militant attacks, notably a July 2022 ISIS (ISIL) attack on a high-security prison in the capital Abuja where around 440 inmates were freed.

Prisons in Nigeria are overcrowded with 70 percent of the inmates still awaiting trial, most prisons in Nigeria are old, having been built during the colonial era before the West African nation’s independence from Britain in 1960.

The structures are rarely renovated, which has made it easier for inmates to escape during past jailbreaks. Thousands of inmates have thus escaped from prisons, including in Abuja, where nearly 900 inmates broke free in 2022.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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