Nine Nigerians suspected to be part of the 1,800 inmates who broke jail at the Owerri Correctional Centre in the southeastern part of the federation, have been arrested in Ada.
The hardened criminals devised a clever means to outwit border security personnel by using a boat on the Volta River through Ada to enter Ghana.
They were however, nabbed by the Ada Police, who said of the nine, one is a female.
The police have given the names of the suspects as Emmanuel Obinnah Chiedozie, 27, Kelli Ekureni, 33, Steve Eyenuku, 33, Freedom Yusuf, 25, Enebeli Lucky, 29, Yummi Usmah, 29, Patrick Chanar, 47, Bless Eyenuku, 25 and 38-year-old Obi Onuora.
Items found on them were personal effects, passports, ID cards and both Nigerian and Ghanaian currencies among others.
Confirming the arrest to DAILY GUIDE, Chief Superintendent Francis Somian, Ada Divisional Police Commander, said the suspects were arrested through intelligence gathered at about 9:30am last Sunday.
The valuable information had it that some foreigners were ferried across the River Volta into Ada Foah and were preparing to travel through public transport to Accra. That could not be as the police quickly moved in to pick them up from a commercial bus, a Mercedes Benz Sprinter with registration number ER 1657-14 at an area called Clinic Junction Lorry Station.
The suspects, he said, have since been handed over to the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) office in Tema for further action.
Mercy Budu, Public Relations Officer of the Tema Command, told DAILY GUIDE that the suspects have been transferred from Tema to the headquarters in Accra.
She would not however, confirm or deny whether or not the arrested persons are part of the Nigerians who recently broke jail in their country.
Case Background
Following the jailbreak in Owerri, Nigeria, the GIS issued an alert signal to its commands to be on the lookout for the fugitives who could be heading for Ghana.
A wireless message titled ‘Prison Break In Nigeria’ originating from the Comptroller-General and sent to all controls and copied to management staff and regional commanders, directed personnel to be on the lookout for the entry of the said prisoners.
The wireless message pointed at the information about the prisoners escape, and read “information gathered by the Service indicates that more than one thousand, eight hundred prisoners escaped from the Owerri Custodial Centre, Imo State-Nigeria on Monday, April 5, 2021.”
The DCG/Operations, Laud O. Affrifah, on behalf of the Comptroller-General, directed officers in the various commands to take note and be on high security alert to, as the message put it, “prevent the entry of these criminal escapees from entering the country.”
Nigerian authorities had earlier declared the said criminals wanted and so the arrest of the suspects would be of value to her security operatives.
Prison Break
The jailbreak was facilitated by the use of rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, explosives and assault rifles on April 5, 2021 by unidentified persons on the Owerri Correctional Centre in the south-eastern part of the country.
The gunmen were said to have used the explosives to blast their way into the prison yard through the administrative structure of the centre, thereby allowing for the exit of the prisoners.
It was an action which added to the security woes of Africa’s most populous country.
Nigeria is fighting a heightened incidence of banditry, insurgency and a general sense of insecurity has spread in some parts of the country.
FROM Vincent Kubi, Ada