Nigeria is on the way to completely destroying Boko Haram terrorists and other criminals as 61,000 insurgents are detained in the country’s North East, according to Interior Minister Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.
He claimed that several terrorists had been captured, particularly in the region of the North East.
The minister made the claim yesterday when he visited Kirikiri maximum and medium security custodial centres in Apapa, Lagos State.
“Today, a core of the criminal elements and insurgents across the country are on a path to defeat, they have been heavily degraded. Over 61,000 of them are in our custody in the North East,” he said
“Our assurance to Nigerians is that we shall rise above these challenges and emerge stronger and more resilient,” he added.
The minister charged officers and men of the Nigeria security forces and paramilitary agencies in the country to remain vigilant to defeat criminal elements terrorising the country.
“We must acknowledge our servicemen and security agencies, who have sacrificed a lot to make this possible. We must equally charge them to remain eternally vigilant and continuously evolve strategies. And to define these strategies, we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom.
“I have also informed our officers and men here that they must fight to defend our institutions, territory and constitution. It also applies to all others wherever they are posted in Nigeria. The ragtag groups of opportunists must not be allowed to attack our institutions and get away. They must not live to tell the story,” Ogbeni Aregbesola stated.
The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) was urged by the minister to increase its efforts in intelligence gathering and acting on that information, claiming that this is the only way to stop the constant attacks on Custodial Centers.
According to Aregbesola, no inmate jailbreak attempt has been successful thus far. “We have put an end to all of them. Since the #EndSars protests in October 2020, we have repeatedly witnessed large groups of people attacking our institutions from the outside and releasing the prisoners.
The minister claimed that in addition to using force and weapons, he has instructed the controller-general of prisons to increase intelligence collecting activities in order to fortify and prevent breaches to the detention facilities.