By Chijioke Agwu
Abakaliki
Following Thursday’s failed jail break in Abakaliki prison, the Ebonyi State capital, the Controller General of the Nigeria Prisons Service, Ahmed Jafaru, at the weekend said that only six inmates died in the incident.
He also said that 16 of the inmates, who were critically injured, were currently receiving treatment at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki. He disclosed that three prisons
officials that sustained minor injuries had been treated and
discharged. Theniche however gathered that some of the inmates receiving treatment at the hospital may not have survived which raised the death toll to 14.
When our correspondent visited the Prison, some of the prison
officials were seen with bandages following injuries they sustained during the failed jailbreak while inmates who were supposed to be taken to courts for the days sitting were not taken as a result of the incident.
It was also gathered that the male inmates last night reportedly raped the female ones. The attempted jailbreak forced the Comptroller General of Prisons, Jafaru Ahmed, to visit the prisons. He met with the inmates and the
officials for hours. Addressing newsmen in Abakaliki, Ahmed, said that the federal prison has a capacity of 378 inmates but presently has over 900. State Comptroller of Prisons, Mrs. Emilia Oputa, told journalists that the inmates were seeking for freedom. She noted that the officials were on their routine search of the inmates in the two cells at the federal prisons to check for harmful objects in their midst when inmates in one of the cells refused to be searched which trigger violence by the inmates.
‘‘One cell was searched and the other cell said they should not be searched. Be that as it may, we said okay relax but because criminals, who joined in the jailbreak of last year, some of them are still here and want to go by all means.
‘‘So those ringleaders already made up their mind. We succeeded because the other inmates are fed well. Last week, I was on familiarization visit with the inmates and they confirmed to me that food was not their problems; their problem is making sure that they go to court. It is what they complained to me last week. So that was their only problem and we must not allow the inmates to overpower us, we must give them instructions and they must obey.
‘‘No time did any inmate over-power the staff; they wounded some staff because we were trying to appeal to them and you must give room for appeal in this type of thing.
‘‘Some bad inmates attacked us; pulled the outer gates, inner gates and were rushing in large numbers for escape. All they want is freedom and I don’t think we the officials have done anything wrong. The court sent these people and we are just keeping them because of the court. Ours is to reform them, keep them busy with recreational activities, with prayers.
‘‘We don’t have enough staff but we have collapsed shift. We used to have three shifts; we have morning, afternoon and night but we have made it to be two.
‘‘They climbed the gate, held it strongly and it came down on some of them. The walls were built very long time ago and it is like when you keep a cloth and sun and rain beat it; is it going to remain the same way? The CJP said that he would first speak with the governor who is the chief security officer of the state before he will speak to you’’, she
said.
