The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) is on high-security alert that some 1,800 escaped prisoners from Nigeria may be headed for Ghana and has prompted its control centres to be on alert to deny the criminals entry into the country.
“Information gathered by the Service indicates that more than one thousand, eight hundred (1,800) prisoners escaped from the Owerri Custodial Centre, Imo State-Nigeria on Monday, 5th April 2021,” Laud O. Affrifah, the DCG/ Operations of the GIS wrote in a wire message to all its units on April 9, 2021.
“I am directed to bring the incident to the attention of all controls. You are to inform officers and men under your command to take note and be on high-security alert to prevent the entry of these escapees into the country.”
Meanwhile, Police in Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria said they have arrested a few of the fugitives.
Last Monday, some 1,844 prisoners in the Imo State of Nigeria escaped when gunmen attacked the prison headquarters in Owerri on April 5. The police headquarters in the state was similarly attacked by gunmen.
Francis Enobore, the spokesperson of the correctional centre, said the gunmen used explosives to blast their way through the centre’s administrative block before gaining entrance into the prison yard.
“Six inmates have so far voluntarily returned to the facility while 35 inmates refused to escape from custody during the attack,” Mr Enobore had said in a statement, shortly after the incident.