A retired military officer and security expert, Group Captain Sadeeq Shehu, has insisted intruders easily breach security at the nation’s foremost correctional center, Kuje prison.
Shehu also said he was happy to hear that President Muhammadu Buhari was disappointed after he visited Kuje prison.
DAILY POST reports that hours after the incident, Buhari visited the scene where he expressed his disappointment with the intelligence at the facility.
Scores of terrorists suspected to be Boko Haram members, on Tuesday night, attacked Kuje prison with explosives and other dangerous weapons, freed all their members and other criminal elements.
The incident has continued to generate reactions from stakeholders who expressed shock at the level of security crisis in Nigeria.
However, speaking during his appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today, on Wednesday, Shehu said, “I took time to go to Kuje prison for the first time today and I was noting the terrain and the access to the prison.
“As soon as you come to Kuje, the main prison itself, what strikes you is a neglected derelict building.
“The main gate which you’ll enter is so crowded with trees and overgrown shrubs that you can’t see ten metres ahead of you. My estimation is that if somebody with a bad plan wants to move on Kuje prison, nobody will know he’s approaching until he’s at the facility.”
He added, “I am happy to hear that the President said that he was disappointed.
“If the President had come the way I came, even the outer walls of the Kuje prison are too low for a prison perimeter wall. The barbed wire is against regulation; there are standards for how a security wall that is housing a prison should be.
“You should be talking about a wall that is 8–16 feet (outer) but by my estimation, what I saw was about 7ft maximum. You’re supposed to put three layers of barbed wire on top (of the fence) and the idea is to at least delay an attacker.”
“An intruder can get into that prison easily. First, the place is clustered and overgrown with grasses which will even give any attacker a cover, especially in the night to move inwards until where the inmates are kept. The requirement is that there should be two fences in a normal prison.
“Between these two (fences), you’re supposed to have a clear area so that when someone breaches the outer wall, there’s time to engage him before he gets to the main building; that killing zone doesn’t exist there.”
