Suspected terrorists on Sunday night attacked the Koto-Karffi Federal Medium Security Prisons in Kogi State.
In the attack that started at 10pm, the gunmen broke through the prison walls to set free all 145 inmates, vandalised the record office and threw the prison doors ajar.
Twelve of the prisoners were later returned while one died from bullet injuries.
This is the second time in two years that the Koto-Karfi prison was breached to free inmates. In 2012, 119 awaiting trial inmates were also freed by the attackers and many never returned.
According to an eye witness, the insurgents invaded the prison in a commando-style raid and operated for more than three hours unchallenged. He said the security operatives came when the damage had been done.
The comptroller-general Alhaji Aminu Sule, who spoke when the Kogi State governor Captain Idris Wada visited the scene, said the attackers forcefully released 144 prisoners.
Sule revealed that 26 of the prisoners were convicted of various crimes while 119 were awaiting trial for robbery, culpable homicide and others.
He pleaded with the governor to prevail on the Judiciary to wake up to its duties by trying awaiting trial inmates effectively.
He said some of the inmates have no business being in the prison. The prison, which stank and looked very unconducive for humans to live in, drew the ire of Governor Wada who decried the level of inhuman condition and promised to provide bedding.
He noted that the prison yard should be conducive to serve as a reformatory home for inmates, and not for breeding criminals, just as he noted that it was not good for the inmates to sleep on the bare floor in the prison he described as the first in northern Nigeria.
He also appealed to the minister of Interior Abba Moro to expedite action on the new Koto-Karfi prison project so that the old building, which was established in 1934, could become a relic or monument for tourism.
Wada declared that he would continue to collaborate with prison service and the federal government to ensure the new prison was completed soon.
He promised to invoke his power on prerogative of mercy to help some of the inmates languishing in jail without trial.
Wada also promised to prevail on the chief judge to do the same.
