The first, second and third bomb explosions from the Boko Haram terrorists last Tuesday night may have caught the residents of Kuje Area Council napping. Consequently, many of them were thrown into panic and confusion. But the successful attack on the Kuje Medium Correctional Centre did not certainly come as a surprise to visitors, workers and close residents of the facility.
Fully armed to the teeth, the daredevil Boko Haram insurgents numbering over 300 came fully prepared with bombs, grenades, and all manner of high-calibre ammunition just on a single mission to free their commanders and other members held in the detention facility.
The seamless manner, the clinical execution and insignificant casualties recorded on their part were confirmations that they took their time to perfect and execute the operations with faultless intelligence.
It was not an operation carried out in a haste, as available information revealed that they inhabited freely with the residents, and rented houses near the prison facility, for several months or even up to a year.
As part of their efforts to perfect their planned operation, many of them were said to have disguised themselves, operating as commercial motorcyclists, private security men, traders, and labourers, among other menial jobs, that facilitated their easy blend, especially in the Mosques, markets, and homes with other innocent residents of Kuje.
While the plot lasted, they did not leave any trace that could give them away apart from their excessive consumption of Indian hemp, occasional display of aggression and periodic strategic meetings.
However, as they carry on their clandestine activities, intelligence reports were either weak, not acted upon or totally ignored. The synergy among the security agencies continued to widen to the point that a security report confirming the attack, on the eve, was deliberately or casually overlooked.
Exploiting the weak intelligence, the insurgents had continued to get emboldened by the day, including smoking weeds very close to the back of the prison wall unchallenged and mingling with the security guards during prayers, until the intimidating gang, numbering over 300, successfully carried out the operation with expectedly feeble resistance from the security forces, who may be relatively very new to their duty post.
With the operation successfully carried out in a show of superior force and celebrated in a carnival-like mood with soft drinks littering everywhere, human and material losses of an unimaginable magnitude were incurred.
In counting the losses, the prison wall had fallen, inmates, numbering over 1,000 escaped, sensitive and non-sensitive documents were either burnt or carted away and more importantly, the insurgent commanders were freed from captivity to worsen and escalate the war against the enemies of the country.
But, in reality, activities at the Kuje Medium Correctional Centre, to close residents, regular visitors, staff and even the security guards, rightly depict the explosion of the time bomb that has been building up to go off at the planned time.
Apparently, security lapses were evidenced in many ways. There was no regular power supply to light up inside and outside the facility.
According to a Correctional Service staff, the challenging power situation was so bad that inmates had to resort to the use of rechargeable lanterns for light.
“Beyond overpopulating the prison by majorly awaiting trial inmates without conscious efforts to decongest the population, the absence of any Close-Circuit Cameras to monitor activities within and outside the prison yard was another challenge of serious concern. There was no perimeter fencing to ward off intruders, which aided the attackers to easily seize the centre,” the staff lamented.
The source added: “For those that care to know, Kuje Medium Prison is one of the freest facilities in the world. It is so because there has always been an influx of international human rights organisations into the prison. With that development, there is a limit to which the prison authorities can deny the inmates exercise of some fundamental human rights.
“Perhaps, that might have accounted for the reason many high profile inmates were allowed the use of phones. Let me shock you that there is one particular Boko Haram commander inside the prison that knows about virtually all the attacks they want to carry out in any part of the country, even as an inmate. He looks so intimidating with the heavy muscles he had continued to build inside the prison.
“The porosity of the prison accounted for why the authorities rejected the appeal to bring Nnamdi Kanu back to the prison again when he was rearrested. I can tell you that the prison cannot avoid experiencing the horrible incidences it had when Kanu was there before.
“The inmates were sharply divided along ethnic lines. The atmosphere was always charged because the inmates pledged their loyalties to their ethnic leaders like Kanu and the Boko Haram commanders. I cannot forget in a hurry the day the deadly clash was averted inside the prison.
“It was obvious that the loyalists to the Boko Haram leaders were tired of the harassment from those loyal to Kanu that always want to clear the road. Unfortunately for Kanu loyalists, they tried it when the Boko Haram commanders who were outside, but they refused to leave the road.
“They threatened to burn down the prison and kill Kanu. The warders on duty begged both sides, but none was ready to bulge. Those in charge were involved and it took more than 30 minutes to restore calm. After the incident, the prison had peace of the graveyard until Kanu finally left. It was that ugly experience that made the authorities resist any plan to bring Kanu back to this centre.”
How the terrorists struck
Like the divergent views in the description of an elephant, different accounts have trailed the modus operandi the insurgents adopted in attacking the Correctional Centre with the popular account being that they struck through the back gaining confirmation from the authorities.
Some of those whose houses are a few metres away from the prison confirmed to our correspondents that the attackers came from the riverside behind the prison; while others claimed they attacked from the front.
However, a prison staff, in an official account argued that they deployed a three-pronged attack.
It was further gathered that the terrorists had gathered, in clusters in surrounding villages, on the eve of the attack to perfect their movement on D-day.
Though the villagers in the communities raised the alarm over the presence of strange persons in their vicinity, to the police and security agencies, not much was done to curtail the movement of these strangers until the attack on Tuesday night.
“What I can tell you for sure is that they knew that if they had escaped through the road, they would have been intercepted by the security forces. The truth is that they were more proactive to choose and study an escape route through the bush path. They came through there and left through the same route. It was a bush path they have used severally without sending a negative signal to the villagers on what their real mission was,” the prison officer told Sunday Sun.
Residents react
For every resident of Kuje, the unimaginable escape of the terrorists has thrown them into heightened apprehension and confusion.
It has worsened the already insecure cases of marauding kidnappers and robbers ravaging the area council.
“To think that we have mingled with members of the deadly Boko Haram sect in our midst for that long is traumatic enough for every resident of Kuje. Come to think of it that they have known the terrain very well having been involved in Okada operation, which took them close to our house and even made our situation more terrifying,” a resident, who declined his name for security reasons, lamented.
Another respondent, a commercial motorcycle operator, who identified himself as Magaji Wahab from Kebbi State, innocently blamed the attack on security lapses.
“You see, sometimes the military will claim that they know security well. But, I can tell you that most of these boys came in and infiltrated the community months before the operation. As I do this work, I have seen many things, but my own is to collect my small money to feed my family.
“So, before it happened many of them were operating Okada and that is why on the day of the attack, scores of terrorists stormed the location with motorcycles and detonated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and grenades.
“Last Tuesday, was the most fearful night of my life because even though we saw some of those boys when they entered the town and could not inform the police or army for fear of using me as an example, it was shocking that the security agencies could not curtail the attack.”
Mary Simon Bako, a widow, residing right behind the prison facility told Sunday Sun that she and her family witnessed unusual movements from fierce-looking men sitting close to the bush consuming India hemp endlessly.
“When we saw them, we felt something unusual, but it did not occur to us that it was going to be this kind of war-like situation. You see, since seeing boys smoking weed in and around Kuje has now become a daily thing, we felt it was as such,” she narrated.
Reacting further, Bako described the sounds from the bomb explosives as deafening, adding that the several gunshots during the attack should be enough to kill all the security men around the facility.
The widow admitted that all have not been the same for her household since the attack, lamenting that the situation has affected her income because security agents now comb her compound every now and then with strict instruction not to either move about at odd hours or stay out beyond 3:00p.m.
“Can anyone tell me how I can cope with this kind of situation? I feed and pay school fees from this business and we stay late into the night while dealing with customers,” she said.
Sani Gorah, another resident of Kuje, in a shocking revelation, narrated how he housed military men that took cover in his residence.
“I slept under my bed; the military men on the road entered my house. They dived under my bed and said they were the target. According to them, they have better guns than that of the military which is AK 47,” he said.
Sani further explained that bullets nearly hit his brother, Hassan, who was coming home from town.
“The operation lasted from around 10:00p.m to 12 midnight with no military presence to stop them. I can tell you this because the shooting continued unabated.
“It was at that point we understood that those boys we saw previously meant bad. I think I have learnt my lessons about this community. Today, I understand that the prison yard is a security threatening environment,” he quipped.
