270 INMATES ESCAPES FROM MINNA MEDIUM PRISON

No fewer than 270 inmates of the Minna Medium Prison, Niger State, escaped yesterday after an attack by six gunmen.

The incident came barely a week after a similar attack on the Federal Prison on Afao-Ekiti Road in Ado- Ekiti, during which 320 of the 446 inmates escaped. Yesterday’s attack in

 Minna occurred about 4 pm when convicts were released to take a stroll within the prison yard. Following the attack, 270 of the 323 inmates were said to have escaped. A competent source revealed to Sunday Sun that the attack was probably carried out to set two notorious convicted robbers in the prison free. They are Ayo (a.k.a Eze ego), a dismissed MOPOL officer, and one Osama. According to the source, the two were convicted in Kebbi and Edo states respectively and were serving jail terms in Minna.

During the attack, a prison official (name withheld) was wounded by the gunmen who subsequently made away with arms and bullet proof vests meant for prison warders. An eye-witness further disclosed that the gunmen dispossessed a man of a white car, which they later abandoned. The gunmen, however, snatched a Toyota Sienna car and escaped with it. A resident of the area, Alhaji Dejo Afolabi, who spoke with Sunday Sun, narrated how he narrowly escaped being shot by the gunmen.

He said he had just come out of a mosque near the prison when he was confronted by the gun-totting men of the underworld. In a swift response to the situation, about 20 of the escapees were re-arrested and returned to the prison barely two hours after the operation.

Ekiti State jailbreak is still generating controversy, as the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) continue to trade words over the incident. Meanwhile, the Federal Government in a bid to uncover those behind the attack on the Federal Prison on Afao-Ekiti Road in Ado-Ekiti, has set up an investigative panel. The panel is expected to make its findings known to government and make recommendations.