‘Insurgents freed 366 prisoners during Mubi attacks’

Members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect, who attacked and captured the second largest town in Adamawa State, Mubi, on Thursday, also set free 366 prisoners held at the detention facility.

The insurgents had attacked the Mubi Police Station and the Prisons facility on the date the town fell to them.

The spokesperson for the Nigerian Prisons Service, Mr. Ope Fatinikun, gave the number of prisoners freed by the insurgents at the Forum of Spokespersons for Security and Response Agencies organised by the I-Nigerian Initiative in Abuja on Wednesday.

Fatinikun also said that the rampaging members of the Boko Haram sect released 2,255 prison inmates from various prisons facilities across the country in 14 different attacks between July 27, 2009 and October 2014.

He said that out of the 11 prisons facilities that had been attacked in the past two years, some had been completely destroyed.

However, Fatikun said that out of the 2,255 prisoners released by the attackers, the prison authorities were able to recapture 194 of the inmates.

He said that the NPS had also recaptured a total of 25 inmates out of the 145 who were released from the Koton Karfe Prisons in the latest Prisons attack on Sunday.

He explained that the facility was not holding Boko Haram detainees.

The Prisons spokesman also said that a total of 46 personnel of the NPS comprising 42 serving officers and four retired personnel were killed in active service by the insurgents during the period.

He stated also that the Federal Government had approved the upward review of the daily allowance of feeding of inmates across the country from N200 to N300 per day.

Fatinikun said that the review was expected to take effect from January 2015.

Fatinikun, who gave the total population of inmates in the nation’s 239 prisons at 56,785 as at June 2014, said that 55,616 of them were males while 1,169 were females.

He stated that out of the total number of 18,042 convicted prisoners, 17,474 were males and 301 were females while males comprise 1,414 and female 25 of a total of 1, 439 condemned inmates.

According to him, a total of 38, 743 detainees were awaiting trial out of which 37, 875 were males and 868 females.

He said that 151 foreigners and 10 babies were also being held in the facilities.

Fatinikun, who also spoke on the challenges confronting the Prisons Service, identified inadequate budgetary provision, the state of dilapidation of prisons facilities and barracks across the country, prisons congestion, inadequate number of staff, lack of requisite number of escort vehicles, the Boko Haram insurgency among some of the factors affecting the operations of the service.