The Kuje jail-break: One assault too many (3)

On incremental basis, Nigeria has become a country where the impossible, unimaginable and incredible things happen and they pass just as normal run of events in everyday life and living.

Again, the country is increasingly degenerating into a level where life has become both brutish and short, and events mock at human foresight to a point where the only thing that is certain is the unforeseen.

Events in the country are reminiscent of those in the troubled English society of William Shakespeare’s time when the celebrated playwright observed that “it is either there is civil strife in heaven or the earth, too saucy with the gods, incenses insurrection.”

Recently, the news hit the airwave like a fairy tale that Kuje Prison, a Medium Custodial Centre in Abuja, had been attacked by terrorist elements. This is a facility that houses the low, the high and the mighty who have, one way or another, breached the laws of the land. Some of the inmates are also crime suspects, including Boko Haram insurgents.

We had, in all sincerity and high sense of responsibility, expected that by now, heads must have rolled and would continue to roll until someone gives explanation or takes responsibility for this rape on the country’s entire security architecture

The Service Public Relations Officer (SPRO), Abubakar Umar, was reported to have said that a total of 879 inmates escaped from the facility during the attack, adding that so far 551 inmates have been recaptured and returned to the custody while 443 inmates are still at large.

Umar disclosed that four inmates were killed in the attack while 16 others sustained various degrees of injury and were being treated at undisclosed health facilities in the Federal Capital Territory.

This is an unfortunate incident happening in one of the most unlikely places in the country. Not a few Nigerians are miffed by this attack and, for us, it is a bold statement on the several security lapses that define us as a people and as a sovereign nation.

While Muhammadu Buhari, the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, says he is disappointed with the security system, we on our part are saying that we are shocked by the brazenness of the attack, the allegations of collusion by insider authorities of the centre with the invading terrorists.

We are all the more shocked that, several days after the attack, there have been no consequences for relevant stakeholders including the minister of interior, armed forces, national security adviser, among others. This, in our view, is an ugly precedent, making us wonder whether President Buhari wants to watch as the Nigerian state collapses into a crime scene.

We had, in all sincerity and high sense of responsibility, expected that by now, heads must have rolled and would continue to roll until someone gives explanation or takes responsibility for this rape on the country’s entire security architecture.

It is pertinent for us to repeat some of the questions the president asked in one of his several tweets on the incident: “How did the defence at the prison fail to prevent the attack? How many personnel did the centre have on duty on that fateful day? How many of them were armed? Were there guards on the watchtower? What did they do? Does the CCTV at the centre work? If not, why?

To say that ours is a country where anything goes is to emphasise the obvious. But that is the truth of the matter. Otherwise, why is it that, up till now, nobody has provided answers to the president’s questions so that Nigerians would know who their enemies really are?

In the last 12 to 24 months, Nigerians have seen instances of security lapses in the land, making the Kuje incident one attack too many. And to think that the Kuje attack happened the same day the President’s convoy was attacked in Katsina and a whole Battalion of the Nigerian Army was wiped out in Shiroroh, Niger State, is a huge task on Nigerians’ imagination which they can ill-afford at the moment.

Many have said that the Kuje attack and similar ones before it speak to failure of intelligence or lack of it in the country’s security system. For us, it goes beyond that. Those attacks also speak to failure of governance because, anywhere in the world, the primary duty of government is to protect lives and properties of citizens.

Read also: The Kuje jail-break: Another low moment for Nigeria (2)

This means that, on issues of security, government has to be proactive. In our circumstance, unfortunately, government is always reactive.

Surreptitiously, it has become a stock-in-trade for the officials to “condemn the dastardly act; be on top of the situation, fish out the perpetrators” but actually never go beyond those empty cliché.

We strongly believe that the inability of government to really fish out the perpetrators and make a bold statement with them is the reason these attacks have festered like sore, wasting the finest of the country’s human and material resources with impunity.

Terrorists have attacked people in churches, mosques and highways including passengers in a moving train, yet not even a single person has been caught and questioned or prosecuted by government.

Perhaps, the government in its estimation may be doing its best in its fight against insecurity in the country, but Nigerians are saying that their best is not good enough, hence, we urge them to do more.

We agree with Tukur Buratai, former Chief of Army Staff, who advised that security agencies should make early use of intelligence to avert possible attacks. In matters of security, delay could be dangerous.

Due to the enormous challenges of existence, Nigerian citizens, including the security agencies, seem to have turned into the characters in Samuel Beckett’s play, ‘Waiting for Godot’ where people are marooned in an unreal world, waiting for something or someone that does not exist or lacks reality.

It is our humble advice that government should rise to the challenges of the moment because “to resign to fate is madness, and not to do something is to be crippled fast.” In the present circumstance, we are of the opinion that somebody has to take responsibility if we have to see an end to these dastardly acts. Not to do so is to set an ugly precedent. And the time for action is Today.