Sunday’s daredevil security breach at the Jos Prison demonstrated the increasing contempt for the nation’s armed forces by terrorist gangs in the country. This prison is virtually in the centre of security establishments in the city, sharing a fence with the DSS and directly opposite the state headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force.
The seat of the military outfit, Operation Safe Haven, is just uphill, probably only 200 meters as the crow flies! Although the nation witnessed similar outrage some months ago with the invasion of the premises of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna, this particular incident occurred a day after a national newspaper, Daily Trust, carried on its front cover a story focusing on a pattern of attacks on Nigeria’s prison facilities nationwide.
In Nigeria, it will take several days or months before the public is briefed (if ever) of preliminary findings on the incident (something that is done abroad within a few hours).
In my earlier write up I said the attack on Jos Prison was “foiled” by security forces. I was misled by press statement of the prison publice relations officer. I take back that statement.
For the records, it was a highly successful operation from the terrorists’ standpoint, carried out in a clean and surgical manner. Apparently while the security men were busy surrounding the premises and believing they had trapped the invaders inside the prison, as we were told by the PRO, they had long bolted out. But not before they had freed 263 inmates, who, I believe, included the ones they came for, broken into the armoury, stolen ordinances and killed an armed officer. None of them was arrested. They, however, lost one individual in the exchange of fire. According to a source, Danbala Garba, the nine inmates that died during the attack were killed by the prison guards.
I am not celebrating this failure of our security forces, but if I don’t retract the initial error it would be tantamount to conspiring against the truth and suppressing the urgent imperative of sharpening the teeth of national security: intelligence gathering, alertness, defensive and offence capacities, as well as cultivating the will to fight this menace with all means necessary.
We know that prison breaks usually constitute a significant component in the gathering storm of terrorism in a country, either to free incarcerated comrades, free and recruit certain individuals of unique criminal skills or to simply steal ordinances. But the Jos attack also sent a clear message because apart from the guts displayed in the attack, it was evident that careful planning and painstaking execution preceded it.
The message is to confront all Nigerians with the truth about the dismal counter- terrorism measures, which the government or its agencies have claimed to put in place in the face of the deteriorating security situation.
It seems any hope is baseless. The first line of tackling insecurity is the establishment of formidable intelligence gathering machinery, the purpose of which is to detect, infiltrate, arrest and/or abort terrorist acts before they are ever carried out. But what do we have here? Just imagine. How can tens or hundreds of illicit non-state actors aggregate in an urban city like Jos, conduct surveillance on such a strategic axis for many weeks probably and subsequently move to the target, armed and in large numbers, in daylight, completely undetected?
To me it is no longer the question of whether we the masses are safe. The question now is whether our Government Houses and their occupants are safe!
Let us get this into our skulls: Terrorists are not bandits. Bandits seek booties, terrorists seek power. That is where all this is leading to.
•Ishaku is a senior journalist resident in Jos, capital of Plateau State.
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