Nigerian prison raid highlights security challenges

The raid, and a separate ambush on an advance convoy of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari who was not present, highlights Nigeria's going security challenges, particularly in northern regions where armed insurgents and gangs are rife.

Shuaib Belgore, permanent secretary of the interior ministry, told reporters outside the Abuja prison, which has 900 inmates, that a security officer was killed and three others were injured during the raid.

He said that the suspected Boko Haram attackers came for members who were held in prison.

They came specifically for their co-conspirators, but in order to get them, some of them are in the general prison population so they broke out and other people in that population escaped, but many of them have returned, Belgore said.

He said more than 600 inmates had fled, but half had been recaptured and a manhunt was continuing. They reported themselves to the police, some we have successfully retrieved from the bushes where they were hiding, and we have retrieved about 300 out of about 600 that got out of jail cells, he said. On Wednesday morning, the remains of several vehicles with bullet holes were seen outside the prison, attesting to gunbattles in the vicinity during the raid. More than 600 inmates fled, but half had been recaptured and a manhunt was continuing, said Shuaib Belgore, permanent secretary at Nigeria's interior ministry. As armed security officials brought in a shirtless inmate limping with a gaping wound to his leg, a helicopter hovered overhead, while another injured inmate was carried into the prison. Buhari was not in the convoy of cars carrying an advance team of security guards, protocol and media officers, headed to the president's hometown Daura, near the border with Niger, to prepare for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. A presidential spokesman said in a statement that the attackers opened fire on the convoy from ambush positions but were repelled by the military, police and security personnel accompanying the convoy.