I hid like a rat during Kuje prison att@ck; I didn’t escape — Abba Kyari tells Court

Abba Kyari, suspended deputy commissioner of police (DCP), says he hid like a rat during the recent att@ck on the correctional facility in Kuje.

Recall that on July 5, gunmen att@cked the Kuje correctional facility and freed over 500 inmates, including suspected members of Boko Haram. Although, there were rumours that Kyari and other “high profile” inmates escaped, Abubakar Umar, spokesperson of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), denied the claim.

Moving another bail application at the court session on Wednesday, Kyari, through his lawyer, Onyechi Ikpeazu, told the court that he had the opportunity to escape but declined to do so. He said the invasion of the correctional facility has established “a special and exceptional circumstance” that should warrant the court to release him and his co-defendant on bail, pending the determination of the dr#g trafficking charge.

“My lord, every living soul in this country will agree that there was not just a breach, but that there was a grand terr@rist att@ck by an organisation that not only successfully invaded the Kuje prison, but took control of it for over three hours. However, the applicant, being a law-abiding citizen, refused to take off.
If there is anything to establish that the defendants will not jump bail, it was that circumstance.

In fact, the defendant hid like a rat, because the organisation that conducted the att@ck went from cell to cell, saying they want to take him and the others to the desert. These people have s#ffered. They are tr@umætized by the events of that night. You can imagine what it felt like, witnessing the att@ckers planting explœsives everywhere in the prison.”