Hundreds of prisoners, including several dozen jihadists, managed to escape after an attack on a prison in a suburb of Abuja.
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France television write Africa
Posted on 7/8/2022 7:48 PM Updated on 7/8/2022 8:06 PM
Reading time: 2 mins
The attack on a prison in the suburbs of Abuja, Nigeria’s political capital, enabled the escape of nearly 900 prisoners, including about 60 Boko Haram jihadists. This operation, the first of its kind near the capital, illustrates the near-universal insecurity in Africa’s most populous country. The head of state Muhammadu Buhari himself seems overwhelmed by the situation. “How can terrorists organize, have weapons, attack a security infrastructure and get away with it?” he said in a statement released on July 6, 2022, the day after the attack.
On the evening of July 5, around 10 p.m. local time, around 300 armed men attacked a prison in the city of Kuje, 40 km from Abuja and the President’s residence. The raid, carried out with explosives and automatic weapons, enabled 64 jihadists to escape. None of them could be found, while the majority of those detained have been “cured,” according to prison authorities. This unprecedented operation in the capital was claimed by the Islamic State organization in West Africa (Iswap). As the name suggests, the group, which emerged from a spin-off from Boko Haram, has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State organization. It is mainly active in north-eastern Nigeria and the greater Lake Chad area.
This is not the first time terrorist groups or gunmen have ravaged Nigeria. Unfortunately, there is always uncertainty there. The attacks are most common in rural areas of the northeast and central areas, where several armed groups and criminal gangs have been established for years. But this time the raid is taking place very close to the capital, where gunmen carried out a spectacular operation. President Muhammadu Buhari could only see the damage and said he was “disappointed” with the prison’s intelligence system. The reaction of the head of state calls when we expect answers from him to fight against the uncertainty.
In another disturbing incident, hours before the jail attack, gunmen ambushed a convoy that included presidential security officials in a town in northwestern Katsuna state. A region infested with heavily armed criminal gangs.