Nigerian President Buhari describes the jailbreak in which nearly 2,000 prisoners were released as an ‘act of terrorism’

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Six of the 1,844 inmates who escaped the Owerri Custodial Center, Imo State, have returned voluntarily, according to a spokesperson for the Nigerian Correctional Service.

Thirty-five others chose not to go into hiding during the attack, authorities said.

“The attackers who stormed the facility at approximately 2:15 am on Monday, April 5, 2021, gained access to the garden by using explosives to destroy the administrative bloc,” said Francis Enobore, spokesman for the Nigerian Prison Service.

Nigeria police have blamed the banned secessionist group, the indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) and its paramilitary wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), for the attack.

Police said the gunmen, who also stormed Force headquarters in the state, were armed with a variety of advanced weapons and military hardware.

“The attackers’ attempt to gain access to the police armory at the headquarters was completely and appropriately opposed by the police of Nigeria,” police said in a statement Monday, adding that no lives were lost. the incident.

State government of Imo Hope Uzodinma, center, inspects the site of an attack on police commanders' headquarters in Owerri, Nigeria, on Monday, April 5, 2021.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who is currently on a medical visit to the UK, described the simultaneous attacks as “an act of terrorism, ”in a statement posted by its spokesperson Garba Shehu.

Buhari also ordered the country’s law enforcement agencies to detain fleeing prisoners and arrest the perpetrators believed to be “deadly criminals,” the president said.

Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the separatist group IPOB, has denied the organization’s involvement in the attacks.

He told CNN, “We have no hand in what happened in Owerri, Imo State. That said, we recognize and acknowledge the anger, resentment and sense of injustice felt by many people – especially the young.” said.

So what is happening now is that people are trying to avenge the deaths of their loved ones at the hands of the Nigerian security forces. Some people, I believe, took it upon themselves to say ‘enough is enough. continues to torment, they only invite anarchy, Kanu added.

Nigerian officers have killed 150 peaceful protesters, Amnesty report claims
IPOB was banned and designated as a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government in 2017 after its persistent demands for independence sparked periodic clashes with security forces leading to the loss of lives.

The Buhari regime has continued to tackle the activities of IPOB, fearing that an escalation of secession – especially in the group’s strongholds in Eastern Nigeria could trigger a new civil war between Nigeria and Biafra.

In a 2016 report, Amnesty International accused Nigerian security forces of mastering the murder of dozens of unarmed pro-Biafra protesters. The claims were rejected by the Nigerian military at the time.
In 1967, a senior military officer – Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu – headed the breakaway republic of Biafra, a secessionist state carved out in southeastern Nigeria.

It sparked a bitter civil war from 1967 to 1970 and more than a million people died of starvation in the aftermath of the war.

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