TheCable

Abba Moro, the minister of interior, is denying reports of an attempted jailbreak in the Kirikiri Medium Prison, Lagos, insisting that inmates only protested against unfavourable conditions.

Moro, who visited the prison on Sunday, assured that security agencies had restored calm, while the federal government was determined to improve prison conditions.

He lamented the high number of inmates awaiting trial, saying that efforts to de-congest the prison were in top gear.

“At the moment, we have the issue of congestion, and it is very unacceptable that we have a prison which is accommodating 2,536 inmates. Out of this number, only 98 are convicts. We have 2,434 inmates awaiting trial,” he said.

“What also comes to mind is the state of facilities in some of our prisons. It requires some level of rehabilitation. When we finish our assessment, we will be able to address the problem of congestion in our prisons. We are working on that. We must have facilities that conform to the international practices.”

The minister blamed the incident of Friday on an inmate who violated the prison rules and incited his colleagues.

“From the information made available, the immediate cause of the riot is that an inmate came unauthorised and installed some gadgets without the knowledge of the officials,” he said.

“What it meant therefore was that a convict who brought in some gadgets instigated the inmates to complain and that led to the fracas. But the police and other security agencies have intervened and calmed down the situation.

“More fundamentally, there is need for us to think about the level of freedom the inmates enjoy, especially compared to the level of international practices. The two gatherings representing the inmates are the chapel and the mosque. Christianity is Christianity, and in the world over, one worship ground is usually provided for the inmates. The prison services must review the institutions of worship in our prisons.”

Meanwhile, the prisons service has commenced a probe into the incident.

Ope Fatinikun, spokesman of the service, said Aminu Suley, the acting comptroller-general of prisons, had set up a probe panel to investigate the issue.

The casualty figure remains unclear. Though TheCable gathered that two people were killed, Fatinikun said only one inmate died. While unconfirmed reports had it that five people lost their lives.