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Kuje Prison Attack: Military Court-Martialing Elements, Says Presidency

The Presidency says the military is trying some officers over the July 5 attack on the Kuje correctional facility in Abuja.


This file photo shows the scene of the attack on Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja on July 5, 2022.
This file photo shows the scene of the attack on the Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja on July 5, 2022.

 

The Presidency says the military is trying some officers over the July 5 attack on the Kuje correctional facility in Abuja.

In the wake of the attack, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Idris Wase, claimed that the Department of State Services, shared intelligence reports before the jailbreak but no action was taken.

“I went through the DSS report; 44 reports were given before the attack on Kuje. I read through all the reports and it all has to do with this, ” the lawmaker said. “There is no community that one attack or the other will happen that you will not have intel, and this is part of the intel that they had given as to what is exactly going to happen.”

But the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has faulted the comment.

“I think it is wrong to say no action has been taken,” he said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily Monday.

“My understanding is that the military is already court-martialing some of the elements. So, if there was no willingness to fight or to resist, the consequences will follow.”

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Over 500 suspects and convicts escaped when fighters of the Islamic State in West Africa Province attacked the correctional centre in Nigeria’s seat of power. The jailbreak was one of about 20 others recorded since May 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari, a retired major general, came into office.

Similarly, Shehu confirmed that the Federal Government entered a negotiation with terrorists holding scores of passengers of the March 28 train attack hostage.

According to him, there would be consequences should the government choose to deploy force against the abductors.

The presidential spokesman had during an interview with the BBC Hausa said the bandit kingpin holding the passengers demanded the release of his wife and some lieutenants but did not release the abductees despite the government meeting his demands.

Asked to respond to the report, he said: “Yes, they are my words actually; there are two ways that a rescue of that nature can be done – either through negotiations, non-kinetic or through the use of weapons, the use of force as the President said he wasn’t inclined to.

“If you choose the use of force, you must be prepared for consequences that follow.”