OMG! How notorious kidnappers escaped from Kuje prisons

Two notorious kidnappers who
abducted and killed a society lady,
Mrs. Edith Chinedu Aliyu, have
escaped from the Medium Prisons,
Kuje, Abuja, in a daring jailbreak on
Friday evening. This is as some
prisoners rioted over the sharing of
alcohol in the Kirikiri Female Prison
in Lagos.
It was gathered that the two Kuje
inmates, Maxwell Ajukwu and
Solomon Amodu, used a plank to scale
the high wall of the prisons while
Muslim inmates were breaking their
Ramadan fast at 7pm.
Our correspondent gathered that the
two escapees were part of a gang who
abducted the lady and killed her after
raping her.
The daring escape set off reports that
the leader of the Movement for the
Emancipation of Niger Delta, Charles
Okah, had escaped from the Kuje
Prisons, but the Prisons Public
Relations Officer, Francis Enobore,
described these as untrue.
Our correspondent gathered that one
of the escaped inmates, Ajukwu,
converted to Islam some weeks ago,
apparently to exploit the lax security
system in the prisons during the
ongoing Ramadan fast.
A security source said, “The two
kidnapping suspects escaped and left
their colleague behind. What
happened was that one of them, from
the South-East, converted to Islam
some weeks ago while in prison when
he observed that the prison officers
allowed Muslim inmates to stay late
against standard prisons rules.
“Normally, the inmates are locked up
in their cells by 5pm every day, but
the prison authorities decided to
extend the time till 8pm to enable the
inmates break their fast and pray.
“Preliminary findings show that the
two inmates escaped at a point near
the chapel in the prisons, which was
usually guarded by a prison officer,
but he (the officer) did not come to
work on Friday and nobody was
posted to secure the place.”
Meanwhile, another source, a top
prison official, who spoke with
SUNDAY PUNCH on condition of
anonymity, said the Kuje inmates
exploited a “weakness” in the prison
system.
He said, “Normally, inmates are not
supposed to be outside beyond 6pm to
6.30pm daily. But the officer in charge
of that prison, who takes money from
the inmates, allows them stay till 9pm
or 10pm.
“What happened was that some of the
inmates, who had studied the lapses,
decided to use them to plot their
escape when it was dark. After they
finished breaking their fast on Friday,
they put up a ladder on the wall and
jumped out. They had fled before the
management noticed.”
CP detains two personnel
SUNDAY PUNCH also learnt that two
armed prison officers of the prison
service (armed squad team) who were
supposed to be on guard duty outside
the prison wall did not report to work
during the jailbreak.
It was learnt that the Federal Capital
Territory Controller of Prisons, Daniel
Ehindero, had ordered the detention
of the two officers in Kuje prisons.
In July 2015, the FCT Command of the
Department of State Services arrested
Amodu, Ajukwu and two others over
the abduction and murder of Dr. Aliyu
in the Gwagwalada area of Abuja.
Vanguard had reported then that the
Assistant Director in charge of
Operations at the command, Mr.
Ibrahim Halilu, said the late Aliyu,
who was the proprietress of Chelston
Group of Schools and Chief Executive
Officer of Grants Micro Finance Bank,
had been kidnapped at her residence
on June 29.
“They (suspects) murdered and buried
her in a bush after Yangoji Village,
along Kwali-Lokoja Expressway two
hours later for recognising one of
them,” he said.
Halilu had said the suspects admitted
that they committed the crime and
had agreed to lead operatives of the
command to where they buried
Aliyu’s corpse to be exhumed. He
added that one of the arrested suspects
was the driver to the deceased who
masterminded the kidnapping and
murder of his employer.
The DSS boss had said, “On June 30,
the kidnappers contacted her relations
and demanded N5m for her release.
On July 6, the sum of N2m converted
to $11,500 was dropped off for the
kidnappers around Obajana Road,
Lokoja, Kogi State by the relations.
“The driver said since she had seen
our faces, it was better we killed her.
The person who killed her, Douglas, is
not here. We dug the grave, Solomon
and I. She recognised me but she did
not know me very well. The driver
took me to her house two days before
the incident. He took me there as a
spy to know the environment.”
Ajukwu had said before the abduction,
he worked as a private teacher in
Gwagwalada. He said it was one
Sunday Jacob that initiated the plan
and funded the kidnap.
Amodu, 32, who said he was a 400-
level student of Geography at the
University of Abuja, confessed to have
participated in the killing of Aliyu.
Amodu admitted to driving the get-
away car after the kidnapping, saying,
“When we picked the woman, as we
were going, we removed our masks
around a check-point and the woman
recognised Maxwell as the man her
driver brought to her house. She
slumped as she saw Maxwell’s face
and, in the process, they asked me to
look for an untarred road to park. It
was there Douggy asked me to tie her
hand and he strangled her. That was
how she died.”
The gang members were then charged
for murder and kidnapping at a
Federal High Court in Abuja.
Soldiers grumble over deployment in
prisons
Sources said the prison authorities
were mystified by the disappearance
of the two inmates, despite the
presence of many soldiers around the
perimeter of the prison.
Our correspondent who visited the
prison observed armed soldiers at
strategic locations around the facility,
but sources within the NPS said the
soldiers were not happy with their
deployment in the prison.
“The soldiers always grumble over
their posting to the prisons and they
informed the authorities that they
were at the prison to defend it against
external attacks and that anything that
happens inside the prison is none of
their business,” a source stated.
It was learnt that though there were
about 200 NPS personnel at the
medium prison, many of them did not
report for duty, particularly female
officers.
SUNDAY PUNCH gathered that many
illicit practices, including selling and
smoking of hemp by inmates, were
going on in the Kuje prisons.
A source told one of our
correspondents that early this year, a
junior officer was stopped at the
prison gate by a guard who saw him
carrying a ‘Ghana must go’ bag filled
with hemp.
The Prisons PRO, who confirmed the
jailbreak, said the Controller General
of Prisons, Ahmed Jafa’aru, had
dispatched a team to the prison to
carry out preliminary investigations.
He noted that any staff member found
culpable would be made to face the
full wrath of the law.
Female prisoners riot over alcohol in
Kirikiri
Meanwhile, a source in the Kirikiri
Prisons told our correspondent on
Saturday that there was a riot at the
female prison.
According to the source, a senior
prison official had brought in alcohol
for some of the inmates on Friday.
He said trouble started when the
drink did not go round, which led to a
protest as the other inmates insisted
on having their share.
He said, “Last night (Friday), a female
officer of the rank of Prison Assistant
2 brought in alcohol for the inmates.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go round and
the others started demanding their
share. The warders tried to settle the
case but it went out of hand, as the
inmates resorted to rioting. They sang
protest songs, shouted and threw
stones.
“They insisted on seeing the officer in
charge, who had not been around for
the past two months. The deputy OC
was also not around to settle the case.
They said they wanted alcohol
legalised. There has been serious
tension in the prison, even as I speak
to you.”
Reacting to the Kuje Prisons jailbreak,
a security analyst, Mr. Segun Elijah,
said, “A single person cannot break
out of prison and run away; in most
cases, they get the support of prison
officials, especially in Nigeria where
everything is sellable.”
A member of American Society of
Industrial Security, Prof. Femi
Adegbulu, also told one of our
correspondents that no jailb