Lawan decries lack of CCTV in Kuje prison after ISWAP attack

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on Thursday expressed disappointment over the lack of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras at the Kuje correctional facility in Abuja.

Members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) attacked the correctional centre on Tuesday night and set free over 800 inmates, including 64 insurgents detained in the facility.

Four persons, including a staff of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) were killed in the attack.

Lawan, who led a delegation of the Senate leadership to assess the extent of damage to the facility, wondered if other smaller correctional facilities across the country have CCTV.

He said the attack on the Kuje prison was clear evidence that Nigeria’s security architecture has collapsed.

The Senate president said “The attack on this correctional facility is symptomatic of the failure of security architecture. The attack is only a culmination of the failure of security systems.

“We were told that an estimated 300 terrorists attacked this facility. They came on foot, and I believe they should have been detected.

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“In the first place, 300 people will not come for an operation like this without planning. Planning must have taken a week, a month or a bit more.

“I believe that our security agencies should have picked this from their tracking systems in the FCT.

“Secondly, having gone round the facility itself, we are disappointed that this facility does not have Closed Circuit Television cameras, something that would record and give you details of what is happening and sometimes record the events.

“This is a medium security custodial center, how on earth do we have facility of this magnitude in the FCT and we don’t have CCTV? It means we can say that all other medium security centers across the country do not have CCTV.

“We have asked the Comptroller-General of Correctional Centre to ensure that the requests for CCTV at the maximum and medium custodial centres of the country are included in their 2023 budget because this is essential and indispensable.

“Now, as this facility lacks a functional CCTV, there’s no record of what happened, except narration. But if we had CCTV, at least the records would have been there and analysis made, and arrest will be based on the information from the CCTV.”

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