The Threat of Jailbreak and Security Challenges in Nigeria

Background to the Study
The Nigerian correctional service is an institution meant to administer penal treatment to adult offenders. It is an important and indispensable institution in the bid to reduce crime in the society. On the basis of imprisonment policy, the Nigerian Correctional Service was established to manage criminals in prison yards. These constitutional functions empower the prison operatives to among others keep convicted offenders (prisoners) in safe custody, keep awaiting trial inmates in custody, until law courts demand their production, Punish offenders as prescribed by the law courts, Reform the convicted prisoners and ultimately, Rehabilitate and re-integrate prisoners who have completed the sentences in the Nigerian Correctional Service.

Inferring from the above, the main aim of establishing the correctional centres in Nigeria is to provide a rehabilitation and correctional facility for those who have violated the rules and regulations of their society. It is assumed effective rehabilitation and reformation that are coupled with proper community reintegration could prove pivotal in reducing the ever increasing rate of recidivism. Effective rehabilitation and reformation of prisoners depend largely on prison officers (Omboto, 2013). Prison officers play important roles in the proper functioning of correctional institutions and directly impact on the behaviors of inmates through their daily contacts with them (Moon & Maxwell, 2004).

It is quite unfortunate that for the last two decades, Nigerian correctional facilities around the country have witnessed at least one sort of jail or prison break. Numerous prison breakouts have occurred in Nigeria, including those in Jos (2022), Oyo (2021), Kogi, Ekiti, Ondo, Minna, Bauchi, Damaturu, and Owerri. Despite the multiple warning signals, prison officials have frequently been caught up in one or more prison breaks around the country, when inmates escape as a result of internal attempt and external attack by insurgents. Generally, information about upcoming riots or prison breaches is sent to prison officials prior to the incidents; and while the authorities are aware of many of these “breaks” in advance, they would never take any preventative measures (Jack, 2016).

Temitope, Marcus, Akinde and Adedotun (2021) observed that some of the significant reasons behind the increasing jailbreaks in Nigeria is due to proliferation of firearms, economic and social crisis, inadequate staffing of the correctional facilities and the fact that the Nigerian correctional system is deficient in the deployment of prison intelligence and dynamic security strategies that are supposed to be in conformity with global practices. In addition, there is prisons security failure as a result of corruption, poor leadership crisis, poor maintenance of facilities; gross abuse of prison rules, among others. In the same vein, many inmates jailed for serious offences like armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, drug abuse, human trafficking, among others, are not put under critical surveillance and the corrections officers in charge do not relate with them professionally in a manner that would make the inmates feel remorseful of criminal acts. And when all these come into play, the inmates make attempts to organize attacks on the prisons in order to escape or employ the assistance of their gangs outside the prison to free them.

As a result of the attacks, many prison staff especially the arms squad unit have suffered trying to defend the prison facilities during jailbreak. However, all these have besieged and continued to weaken the Nigerian Corrections Service operations and administration, therefore resulting in jail breaks across Nigeria. As a result of this, the security challenges in contemporary Nigeria has become humongous that it becomes expedient to evaluate the ability of the Prisons service to collaborate effectively with other security agencies in discharging the security functions of the Nigerian state on one hand and ability to carry out its assigned mandate on the other hand. The study therefore intends to examine jailbreaks and security challenges in Nigeria.