Nigerian prison - The African Mirror

Jul

2022

Over 440 inmates on run after raid on Nigerian prison

ABRAHAM ACHIRGA ISLAMIC STATE claimed responsibility for a raid on a Nigerian prison in the capital Abuja which freed around 440 inmates, raising fears that insurgents are venturing from their enclaves in the northeast. Shuaib Belgore, permanent secretary at the interior ministry, told journalists outside the Abuja prison - which has 900 inmates - that a security officer was killed during Tuesday night's raid and three others were injured. He said suspected Boko Haram attackers came for members who were held in the prison. "They came specifically for their co-conspirators, but in order to get them ... some of them…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Police recapture 114 prisoners

NEWS

A total of 114 of the 266 inmates who escaped from a Nigerian prison on Sunday have been recaptured, the prison service has announced. Heavily armed gunmen raided the medium-security jail at Kabba in south-central Nigeria late on Sunday, blowing up the perimeter fence and freeing almost everyone, but killing a soldier and a police officer, authorities said. The attackers fought a gun battle with guards in what was the second major jailbreak in Nigeria this year. "Following the attack ... and the swift intervention of the controller general of corrections ... a total of 114 escapees have been recaptured,"…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Gunmen attack Nigerian prison, free 266 inmates

NEWS

HEAVILY armed gunmen have raided a jail in south-central Nigeria and freed 266 inmates - almost everyone in the prison, authorities said. The attackers started a gun battle with guards at the medium-security prison at Kabba in Kogi State, southwest of the federal capital Abuja, a spokesman for the Correctional Service said. He did not give details on any casualties. A total of 294 inmates were in custody at the time - 224 of them pre-trial detainees and 70 convicted, the prison service said. The jail was established in 2008 with a capacity for 200 inmates, it added. Suspects can…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Gunmen free more than 1 800 prisoners

NEWS

TIFE OWOLABI MORE than 1 800 prisoners are on the run in southeast Nigeria after escaping when heavily armed gunmen attacked their prison using explosives and rocket-propelled grenades, the authorities said. Nigerian police said it believed a banned separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was behind the attack in the city of Owerri, but a spokesman for the group denied involvement. The secessionist movement in the southeast is one of several serious security challenges facing President Muhammadu Buhari, including a decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast, a spate of school kidnappings in the northwest and piracy in the…