The Kuje correctional center in the federal capital territory (FCT) was attacked on Tuesday night and many inmates including all Boko Haram suspects escaped.
Bashir Magashi, minister of defence, said the attackers are members of the Boko Haram who came to free their comrades who were detained in the facility.
“The people who came to do this for the records belong to a particular group. From all indicators, they are Boko Haram,” he said on Wednesday.
“Currently, there are about 64 of them as inmates and we could not locate them.”
Abubakar Umar, Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) spokesperson, said a total of 879 inmates escaped and that security operatives have recaptured 443 of them.
An army officer at the facility who spoke with Thecable said 30 soldiers were deployed to the prison facility less than 24 hours before the attackers arrived.
He said, according to practice, soldiers guarding the facility are always redeployed every month and that his batch had yet to be familiarised with the area before the attackers struck.
The soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the attackers raided the facility with general-purpose machine guns (GMP).
“Our guns do not match their own. They used grenades and other explosives to bomb the building where the inmates were kept,” he added.
