Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has ordered prison officials to shoot anybody attempting to attack any correctional facility in the country.
He urged security operatives at correcrional centres to make it impossible for anyone to penetrate the facility because it is a red zone.
Aregbesola gave this order while inspecting Agodi Custodial Centre, Ibadan, Oyo State.
The minister said attacks on correctional centres must not be allowed again in the state.
He said, “The most important thing is the security impregnability of this facility. Make this facility impregnable.
“It is a red zone, dangerous zone. Whoever attempts to breach the security here is already dead. He must not live to tell the story. Other people will tell his or her story.
“Any effort to breach our facility is not acceptable. Don’t shoot to injure, shoot to kill. Don’t shoot to disable, shoot to kill.
“This is a total embodiment of the state to guarantee the security of the people.
“We will do our best regarding your welfare to ensure effective service. I must commend your work for not recording any case of COVID-19 in your facility.
“But most importantly, you must be effective in preventing the penetration of this facility. You must have the capacity to repel viciously any attempt to penetrate this facility.”
Aregbesola recently said that at least 4,860 inmates of the Nigerian correctional centres have escaped from those facilities between 2020 and 2021 alone following successful jailbreaks in Benin, Owerri, and Oyo, among others.
Only 954 of that number have been rearrested, it was revealed.