Over 100 prisoners got away from a run-down prison near Nigeria‘s capital after a heavy rain wrecked part of the prison. Security teams are looking for the escaped prisoners.
The heavy rainstorm on Wednesday night broke the fence around the medium-security prison in Suleja. 119 prisoners escaped because of this. Suleja is about 30 miles northwest of Abuja. Adamu Duza, who works for the prison, said this.
The prison and other organizations found 10 of the escaped prisoners and are looking for the others.
The Suleja prison only had one floor and its walls were cracked and damaged. It was supposed to hold 250 inmates, but it had 499. This information was given by Nigeria’s Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, who visited the prison after some inmates escaped.
This means we have to move many of our jails to new places. The minister said they want to make improvements to the space, security, and infrastructure.
“We will take new measures to make the prisons safe and prevent this from happening again in Nigeria,” he said.
People were worried that the escaped criminals might hide in the big forests between Suleja and nearby states, where criminal gangs are known to hide.
Most prisons in Nigeria are very full, with 70% of the prisoners still waiting for their trial. These prisons are also very old, built before Nigeria became independent from Britain in 1960.
The buildings are not fixed up very often, so it’s easier for prisoners to escape when they break out of jail. Many prisoners have gotten away from jails in big breakouts. In Abuja, almost 900 prisoners got away in 2022.
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Over 100 prisoners escape from old Nigerian prison after heavy rain
