Inmates of Kirikiri prison
Some 26 inmates of the Kirikiri Medium prison were Friday allegedly feared dead, while 49 of them sustained various degree of injuries following an attempted jail break at the Prison located in the Apapa area of Lagos, South West Nigeria.
A senior Naval officer, who witnessed the ensuing confusion, told our Correspondent that Policemen and Prison officials, who were earlier trying to contain the alleged jailbreak, shot and killed the inmates.
The senior officer, who is also a resident of the nearby Ojo Naval base, stated further that the prison management was casual and brutal to the inmates. “These are first of all human beings, Nigerians, whom circumstances have made them find themselves in that jail-house. But that is not a license for them to treat them with disdain and contempt.”
People came complaining to you, about what they are suffering and called on you to consider their pains, rather than looking into their complaints, you take up arms, invite armed Policemen, not to come and calm down the angry inmates, but to try to use force to make them swallow their complaints. “What do think would be the response. In every action, there is equal and opposite reaction.”
Although the circumstances leading to the incident were unclear, even as there is still no official statement from any security agency including the prison authority at the time of this story. But a source stated that the rampage by the inmates was as a result of maltreatment and highhandedness of the new prison boss.
The attempted jailbreak occurred about 4pm when some of the inmates attempted to overpower the prison officials and scale the huge gates.
According to an eyewitness , the stillness of the afternoon was broken by sporadic sounds of gunshots and screams from inside the prison.
Sources inside the prison told our Correspondent that most of the inmates were forced into their rooms and a secure lockdown done to prevent those inside from assisting the jail breakers to overpower the prison officials. Immediately the fracas ensued, some of the armed security personnel stationed outside the prison with sniffer dogs were deployed inside while others remained at alert outside.
To quell the situation, personnel of the Nigerian Navy (NN), Navy Town, and Policemen at the nearby Kirikiri Station, were said to have been called in to assist the men of the Nigerian Prison Service safeguard the massive gates of the prison.
When contacted, the Lagos State Command Prison Public Relations Officer, Biyi Jeje, claimed ignorance of the number of casualty. But however agreed to the possibility of casualty. He promised to find out the actual casualty figure and get revert to out our Correspondent, but never did until press time.
Subsequent calls to reach his phones proved abortive as he neither picked the calls nor replied the text message also sent to his phone.
A Navy rating who participated in quelling the riot added, “We were called in after the situation began. We did not shoot anyone dead rather the shots were to deter the rampaging inmates from succeeding in their plot. It is true however that some of them sustained bodily injuries.”
“But that could not be prevented because we were forced to use show of force to quell the situation. This was because those that were not even in the know of the plot tried to take advantage of the chaos and escape.
“With the help of sister services, the situation is now calm and peace has been restored but we are still stationed there and we are at high alert. The injured were taken to hospital for medical attention.
