In its reaction to the attack on the Kuje Correctional Center in Abuja, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, on Thursday, said Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, must be sacked with immediate effect over his consistent failure to stop attacks on prisons in the country.
HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, said it is distasteful and condemnable that over 15 jailbreaks have occurred under Aregbesola in the last five years while over 3,000 inmates have escaped.
The group also urged the President, Muhammadu Buhari, to stop asking rhetorical questions on social media on how the intelligence system of the country failed to detect Tuesday attack at Kuje prison in Abuja.
Recall that terrorists attacked the Kuje Correctional Centre on Tuesday evening, bombed the prison, killed some security agents and inmates while they set over 600 prisoners free including 64 Boko Haram suspects.
According to media reports, soldiers deployed to Kuje vicinity and the Correctional Center’s environment, who had mastered the terrain, were redeployed 24 hours before the dastard attack.
In fact, Tukur Mamu, a media aide to controversial Islamic cleric and bandit-sympathiser and negotiator, Ahmad Gumi, said the Kuje prison attackers were members of the Ansaru terrorist group who launched attack and kidnapped scores of passengers in Abuja-Kaduna bound train on March 28.
Reacting, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “The frequent and recurring jailbreaks show the inefficiency of all those President Buhari appointed into office and his unwillingness to sack them show also that the President tacitly wants the situation to continue to fester.
“HURIWA demands the arrest of the persons who gave the order purportedly for the withdrawal of soldiers before the attack.”
The group also demands the sacking of “the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola; and his Defence counterpart, Bashir Magashi; for perpetual incompetence. We also call for a broad-based judicial panel of inquiry on prison breaks in Nigeria to be constituted.”
