Ahmad Lawan, president of the Nigerian Senate, says Tuesday’s attack on the Kuje Medium Security Custodial Centre by terrorists is a testament of the failure of the country’s security architecture.
The Senate president also stated that an attack on the facility could only have been possible with the collaboration of insiders within the nation’s correctional system.
Lawan stated this on Thursday when he led a delegation of the leadership of the Senate to assess the level of attack on the correctional facility.
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 faulted the Nigerian Correctional Service for not providing Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) at the Kuje facility and others across the country. He asked the comptroller-general 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.
Speaking after an assessment of the correctional facility, Lawan said, “The attack on this correctional facility is symptomatic of the failure of security 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.”
Read also: Kuje Prison attack: Atiku expresses concern over escape of terrorists
“Secondly, having gone round the facility itself, we are disappointed that this facility does not have Closed Circuit Television 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. Now, as this facility lacks a functional CCTV, there’s no record of what happened, except narration,” he added.
“Thirdly, going from one cell to another to release people, specifically, those that are known to be insurgents, tells a lot of story. 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,” the Senate president said.
He stated that all relevant authorities who failed to do their jobs must be sanctioned just as expressed concerns that the FCT is no longer safe.
“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,” he said.
Lawan, therefore, tasked the security agencies to ensure that the insurgents who escaped from the Kuje custodial centre are found and brought back.
Briefing the lawmakers earlier, the commanding officer of the Nigerian Army Battalion in Gwagwalada, Adisa, told the Senate leadership that over 300 insurgents were behind Tuesday’s attack on the Kuje facility.
According to him, only a total of 50 personnel were on ground when the terrorists armed with explosives stormed the facility to release the insurgents.
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