TheCable

Abdulrahman Dambazau, former minister of interior, says the federal government must “hold somebody responsible” for the attack on a correctional facility in Kuje council area of the federal capital territory (FCT).

Gunmen had attacked the prison with explosives on Tuesday night, freeing many inmates — including “all Boko Haram suspects”

Abubakar Umar, spokesman of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), had said over 500 inmates were still missing.

Speaking on the attack in an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, the former chief of army staff expressed concern over the capacity of officers to quickly respond to such occurrences.

“If there was adequate intelligence, those gunmen that attacked the prison wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do so, It would have been preempted long before they even came near the prison,” he said.

“If the response time to such an emergency is not there, it means nothing, which means there is a clear issue between the monitoring itself and even the capacity to respond.

“So, these things would have to go together. It also tells you one thing — that the security agencies are mostly operating in silos. They are not working together. I understood that they had information beforehand that such activity would take place. 

“It’s either those who were there physically to be able to defend that place do not have the capacity to do so, or they were lousy in doing their job.

“I think we need to do things properly and we need to hold somebody responsible for not doing his job, because that’s what I did when two people escaped from Kuje prison.”