 Welcome once again to the breakfast here on Plus TV Africa. Our first major conversation for today goes to Kogi State, where there is a report of an attack on the Kaba Custodial Center, where about 240 inmates were reportedly set free. You know, armed men who stormed the prison and, of course, killed the security agents who were stationed right there outside to protect the prisoners. We're going to be speaking this morning with Mr. Sherwin Showumi, he is joining us to share his views on this incident. There's also reports that 28 of the prisoners stayed back and, you know, a few others have been re-arrested. We'll say good morning to Mr. Showumi. Thanks for joining us. Good morning, Plus TV. How are you guys doing? We're doing very well this morning. Hi, good morning. All right, so let's get your views on, you know, the incident first of all. It's of course very shocking any time this happens. The last time we heard of anything like this was during the Ansar's protest where it happened in a few states across the country. But once again, we're hearing of a jailbreak. People have also shared analysis on, you know, the fact that the prison itself didn't seem like a very secure place. But what are your thoughts, first of all? Thank you very much. Let me first of all lay some foundation. I usually run my personal life by having a dashboard in front of me, like a Nigerian media dashboard. And in that Nigerian media dashboard, I look at everything in the country and those things that, you know, become like a sticking finger, I follow through. In the case of Kogi, for some times now, I have not mostly waited for when people are going to start putting a target on Yahya Bilu's back because, number one, I notice that it's been, you know, its profile has been growing, people have been endorsing it on a lot of things. A lot of attention and interest has been put there. And suddenly, first, we started with one major allegation from EFCC, which it has to struggle to explain its own version of it, because it has a state where it has about 10 neighbors. And of all of the states in Nigeria, especially if under the present circumstances of heads when killing and all of those issues, I have been curious to say, how is this young man keeping that place secure? And then suddenly, I wake up and they tell me, oh, some of the people have gone to Kabab prison, they've broken it and all that. And I can just say one, why do we give govnos a lot of problems in this country needlessly? It's called the Federal Republic of Nigeria for a purpose. And they have this, their schedule of responsibility exclusively, federally, state-based. How will a state govno possibly be able to be everywhere looking at every facility, including federal facilities? So I think the first thing is that we have gotten to a point where we must review the security architecture and give govnos more opportunities and powers to do things to secure their state, you know, legitimately over and above all this vigilante's first point. The second point is, once an incident happened, and incidents are bound to happen, there will be soft targets, there will be criminal elements, there will be all sorts of reasons why things happen. You need to now look at what are the immediate remedial actions that people have taken. And for me, what I see is that immediately they sign into action, immediately they decided to pursue and arrest the people, immediately they've gotten a lot of people back and now they are at the incident location, you know, the ground zero with their people, looking at precisely what will be done. And at the end of the day, I can bet you, I'm not going to be there to look at their government structure and I've never even spoken to you, I've been told in life, but what I suspect is that they're now going to the governor, and now in this case because we're using Kuki, they're going to be under a lot of pressure now to help them secure that kind of facility and such other kind of facility. So therefore I say that when the nation has security challenges, it's time for that nation to look at it holistically and provide the people that are the first line, you know, we are people in charge who have to explain more powers, more responsibility, more authority, more legislative framework to fix the problem. Rather than the hand, if you ask me, I think that my gut feeling when I first saw the thing is that, hey, this police guy, this is going to have started. They won't let anybody that is do something positive, even enjoy some peace. Conspiracy theory, I was beginning to think like a conspiracy theorist. So I have to bring myself back from the conspiracy theory and go to Suki. Let us now let you know how to diagnose it and look at it. So I think it's unfortunate, the federal government has to look for how it's going to secure its own facilities. These correctional centers are exclusively under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They've had deal grades. I think there was one in winter year, like you said during the exercise, all over the place. If it's a prison, it has to be secure. And then we need to also know whether is there a particular prisoner in that particular prison that they would have been trying to, you know, get escape. But it's a lot of issues. Making these things for ourselves. Nigeria is a big country. We have 36 states. We need to give the government's more security powers to be able to do a whole lot more. Even state police and can recruit and pay for it. We shouldn't have a multimodal police system where they can now provide that. Why should the federal government sit in Abuja and try to do everything when in the recents of the world they can really do everything. Mr. Xiaomi, this story has made international headlines. About 240 inmates escaped from their correctional facility in Kogi State. I want us to look at what's likely to happen in the next few hours after this event. What and who is likely to be at risk? What are going to be the consequences of this situation? I think if I if I know, you know, because I've been following them for some time, like I said, and I said, I have a dashboard and that guy is now coming very high up in my dashboard. So if I know them well by the pattern of what I've seen how he's done, he's going to be going ballistic now. I can imagine. He's going to be screaming. He's going to be walking. He's going to be telling people I want result. I want result. I want result. You guys can mess me up on the thing that I've been very good on. So I think that in a few days they're going to pursue. They're likely going to make sure that the entire environment is cold. They're going to work with the security structure of the country. I have a feeling that the people in the Ministry of Internal Affairs themselves are going to go in there. I expect that the police from the Ministry of the Headquarters will also increase their surveillance there. I expect that the Army records and some of the other paramilitary joint joint tax funds will also go in there. I expect that they're going to make the immediate Kogi environment. They're going to lock up a bit and try to profile and see whether there's any strange person all over the place. They will try and I think they've all, they've started getting some result. Within a few days, I think the last time I checked, I'm told that about 100 or something has returned back. I'm aware that a lot of people are also being pursued. I'm aware that they are profiling the characters of people and I pity them because they are bordered by about 10 states. So you can imagine the huge logistics work that require from them to mangle all their temple, all their 10, you know, border states to look at how it's going and if they are lucky, they may be able to get some collaborative effort with all of those state states who will also be helping us. So it Kogi is a nightmare when it comes to managing security and to certainly retire to every sense of responsibility. I think that I'll be interested to see how I manage this and I wish him all the luck so that when he does it well, I can say, you see, I told you guys, there's something that guys do that is different from everybody. Yeah, but I want us to look back at, you know, other incidents. I mean, Edo and in Warri, where the war prison breaks during the Ansar's protests. There's no records that all of those prisoners have been found and brought back to prison. And so, you know, why does that also then say, tell that it might be the same case here, that we might have dozens of these prisoners just completely disappear into thin air and never be found? Well, I think that's not that which I brought up now takes us to another area in terms of the national conversation of how we want to run our country. I have insisted continuously for years now that if you do not have a country like Nigeria, if you don't have a verifiable, biometrically strong identification for people that links them and places them in a verifiable address, we will be in trouble. Why? Because even when things happen, you can't go back and use forensic to precisely know who, where, what, who and all of that. And because you don't know where they lead to a verifiable address, you can't look at there, you can't do a dragnet around there. You know, you know, the families and all that to begin to check and see whether they contact them. And at the end of the day, if you break jail and you don't have all of this, you are going to be a fugitive forever. If you are not in prison for death or for life centers, what kind of life do you want to live when you're going to be running and running and running and running and running for the rest of your life? It's always better to know that if you cannot do the time, don't do the crime. If you do the crime, calmly do the time because at the end of the day, prison is not, is not, it's not a death sentence. And if it is not, you know it is not forever. You can always be pardoned, you can always be rehabilitated, you can always finish your time and go back. But if you run away from the law, then you are a fugitive for life. And if the federal government that is in charge of the whole security cannot take full responsibility, I think we need to understand we're making governments to become a dangerous species while we have not given them the structure that will give them the power to truly be responsible and accountable. So so far so good, they are all trying their best. The more that happened in being a do, what could the, you know, the individual are there to do? So Mr. Shoomi, I want us to consider this, you know, importance issue that has been persistent regarding all the prison breaks that were set in Kogi State. I mentioned earlier that in 2019, when we had a similar event, a prison break, it was under the guise of the flooding. You know, the heavy rains, the downpour, you know, that these prisoners escaped. The same thing Sunday night, Monday morning, there was heavy rains and that's how they were able to escape. How do we bring in the angle of flood management, you know, into this conversation? Well, I think, thank you very much. Before we even go to the flood management, there's one important thing I thought that is good for us to know or share. Do you know that by the structure we run in the country, prison itself is exclusively the responsibility of the federal government? Let me break it down. It means that since Kogi is the example, if somebody commits a crime under Kogi law and they take him to court under Kogi law and they commit him to a custodial prison under Kogi law, do you know that by our constitution, from that minute it becomes a federal property? It's so annoyingly crazy. You need to let the states also have correctional facilities. That's why you see that all over the country, we have mostly very archaic facilities. We have facilities that are not secure enough to even keep animals, let alone keep smart people and criminals. You have security, you have students where we're not even managing them efficiently. We are truly due for a major overhaul. As for the flogging, anybody that wants to commit a crime will look for the best time or the best set of scenarios that can aid them to commit the crime. Yes, we have some parts of our country that have floodplains. You are going to need a whole lot of engineering work to be able to manage that. And hello, where in the world will we say we have seen places that are underflooding or what are issues that don't get flooded? Just a couple of days ago, Americans had to paddle their cannons to get home. Some places have to be with fire every time that comes up. There are some natural occurrences that make situations difficult. But in our own case in Nigeria, we have just insisted that we're not going to give ourselves a fit for purpose federation, which allows us to solve problems where they occur. You cannot insist that people can commit crime in Kano. And then you say that in the Kano system that can go to a high court, that can go to a penal court, cannot now have a custodial process to keep them. It doesn't make sense. All right. And also, I spoke earlier about the danger that these, well, prisoners opposed to the society in Kogi State until they are found. That's also very important. And I think it's also important that the people of Kogi State be at alert to point out that and to call the police. Imagine if it was in England or maybe America, any of those countries. Imagine if there was a prison break and imagine if there were story people going out. Let me tell you one of the things that would probably happen immediately. First of all, you are going to have situations where immediately they're going to be going after them via profiling. Do you get what I mean? They're going to be putting out their pictures. They're going to be asking people who see them to recognize them. They're going to be checking up their necks of kids and all of that. They're going to be tapping the telephones of people that they probably will be calling. There will be a complete sting operation to make life difficult for them and they're going to smoke them out. And if they dare escape, they're going to make their fugitives online. If you don't have this baseline infrastructure, you are not going to be able to do much. And if you don't give governance, some more legislative responsibility to provide a kind of security that is multi-modal. You're going to have a situation where you're just going to be blaming them in a situation where they haven't even the ones that have the responsibility. The federal correctional system in all states in the country, including Kogi, is the exclusive responsibility of the federal government. Okay, Mr. Xiaomi, you have outlined what should be done in an ideal society with all the security infrastructure in place. Well, let's look at our Nigerian reality right now. Raul Farid Bishalaminis of Interior has said they've set up a special tax force to smoke these people out and have also brought it into poll into the picture. What do you expect realistically for these people to do to ensure that these prisoners are apprehended? You know, I tell you that sometimes, sometimes when we're doing analysis, me inclusive, we tend to have, you know, a view of today and we forget about all of the issues of yesterday and yesteryear. I'm saying this because I know Rafiu a little bit and I have an idea of his psychology. He's also going to be trying to look for the best way to get this challenge. But if the rut has existed for 60 years, you are not going to overnight solve all of the problems. So the things he's throwing in, interpolate, will smoke them, join tax force. That's the best you can throw at it. And now that he has thrown it at it, I believe they have their pictures. And just like your colleagues said, I believe they have their names because they must have a record of who they came and who was sent to prison. I believe that they will have their fingerprints. I believe that they will have one or two things that they can use. And we can only hope that this system and the borders, the system within country, the citizens contribution to intelligence. We can only hope that all of it comes together to get us out of this. You know why? We're talking about criminals here. And with criminals who don't even want to do their time, who are interested in jailbreak, they will likely be repeat offenders. And that means that the larger society must not be on guard, watch out for straight faces, watch out for people that are lawyering, people who are renting houses, watch out for the profile of people who are trying to rent houses, people who are running hotels, watch out for people who are coming in to say they want to have a room for one or two days. You have to look at the back end places of the chances. It's a lot of work. But my approach is that when we have a situation, we should deal with that situation. We should learn the right lessons from that situation. And as much of the reform that we need to put in place so that that kind of situation doesn't really easily occur, we should do it. And one of the things that I am saying is that it's time for the system to allow states to have their own correctional facilities. If states have their correctional facilities, imagine if that prison belongs to Kogi State. Then everybody will say, hey dude, how did you leave the prison unsecured? How did you leave it so mismanaged? Because we could hold him responsible. But it belongs to the presidency. And therefore, why you got the whole responsible for imprisoning Karnam and Boda is too far away from where the Supervisory Authority is.