*I’m disappointed at officers deployed to defend facility
Shockingly, and as if to validate the revelations by the private investigator mentioned above, the minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, said certain occurrences pertaining to the Kuje prison attack that he was not ready to disclose in public.
The minister, who made this comment when he led a team from the ministry of Interior on an inspection visit to the custodial centre described Kuje as a world class facility by any standard and the most fortified in the country.
Aregbesola expressed disappointment at the level of defence put up by the platoon of the Nigerian Army with sophisticated weapons, elite men of the Nigeria Police Force, officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence and armed officers of the Nigerian Correctional Service on ground during the time of the attack.
He confirmed that strange things happened during the invasion which he could not say in public.
He said, “Kuje is the most fortified in the country if fortification for security is the determinant of whether it is (a) medium or maximum (security prison). We have a platoon of security officers deployed here. We have high grade military and police and other security forces deployed for protection but strangely something happened most of which I cannot say on camera.”
The minister further reiterated his earlier declaration of all custodial centres across the country as red zones, stating that whoever attempts to breach them would not live to tell the story.
“My position is clear. Since April 2022, I declared that all our custodial facilities are red zones and that whoever attempts an attack must not live to tell the story. I still maintain this. Kuje is the most fortified in the country if fortification for security is the determinant of whether it is medium or maximum, it is medium by size but maximum by the security being put there. We have a platoon of soldiers deployed here. We have the high grade of military and police and other security forces deployment for protection but strangely something happened most of which I cannot say on camera.
“I want to believe those who escaped can only run but cannot hide. It is very regrettable that this happened, let us put it in context, the nation was experiencing asymmetric warfare. Yes , the insurgents have been degraded in the North East of Nigeria, 61, 000 of them are in our custody in the North East, the effect of the effectiveness itself in degrading them in the North East is what we are experiencing.
As sad as it is, we must put behind whatever it is happening in the context of the asymmetric warfare unleashed on the nation by this criminal elements and we will rise to it, that’s the assurance I want to give to Nigerians”, he added.
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