Jailbreak: Governor Makinde visits correctional facility in Oyo State

The Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde has visited the Medium Security Custodial Centre of the Nigerian Correctional Services, Abolongo to assess the facility, which was recently attacked by gunmen.

The Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi and the Commissioner of Police, Ngozi Onadeko, separately paid an on-the-spot assessment visit to the facility.

Both the Governor and the Alaafin were received by top officials of the Service and conducted round the premises of the centre to see the level of the damage.

The Alaafin, who arrived at the place first in the company of Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu, called for calm among the residents and asked them to await the intervention of the government.

CP Onadeko arrived at the scene as the monarch made his way to his car, after having been conducted around the facility.

About 20 minutes after the Alaafin left, Governor Makinde arrived in the company of some government functionaries, including the Chairman, State Advisory Committee, Senator Hosea Agboola; Senator Monsurat Sunmonu and commissioners, among others.

The Governor, after being conducted round the damaged facility, disclosed that he had ordered that the main road leading to the facility be immediately graded, promising to install security cameras in the facility and other correctional facilities in the state and link same with the security situation room in the state.

“This is shocking and unfortunately, we lost a soldier and an Amotekun Operative. Another person is on danger list at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, as we speak. In the main, investigation is still on-going and we cannot say precisely whether this is an isolated event or the beginning of a wider issue that we have to deal with. But whatever the case is, we have made an assessment and taken some immediate decisions.”

Makinde said the government is making a list of critical state assets that need to be monitored, including the entrance and exit points into the state, disclosing that there are still almost 300 criminals on the loose in the state, although operatives have re-arrested more inmates while some others have voluntarily returned, but efforts to apprehend the criminals and bring them back are still on.

Noting that people are very quick to start talking about conspiracy theories concerning the high profile criminals that were held in the Abolongo facility, the governor asserted that investigation is still on and the outcome of the investigation would be revealed in due course.

He said: “Again, I will appeal that our people should be calm. We have challenges around the country – banditry, insurgency and terrorism. And we can only deal with those issues when we have the people in alignment with what the leadership is trying to do. So, they should please believe that their leaders will tell them the exact situation of things at the appropriate time.”

It was observed that as at Sunday, welders had begun work on building a stronger door to replace the one damaged by the attackers and bushes around the facility had been levelled with the corpse of an inmate that was killed already taken away from where it was on Saturday.

Heavy security presence was also noticed in the vicinity with increased security surveillance by more Amotekun Corps operatives, vigilante groups and hunters, among others.

PIAK