The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has given a shoot to kill order to prisons officers should anyone attempt to breach security at any correctional centre in the country.

Aregbesola’s comment comes in the wake of the recent prison break that saw 262 inmates flee the Jos Medium Security Custodial Centre, leaving nine dead in the process, though 10 have been rearrested.

During a recent Ministerial Press Briefing in Abuja, the former Osun State governor revealed that about 4,860 inmates have successfully escaped from correctional centres across the country between 2020 and 2021 while only 954 have been rearrested.

However, while inspecting a facility at the Agodi Custodial Centre, Ibadan, on Monday, Aragbesola noted that inmates who aim to breach prison security as on a suicide attempt.

As such, he ordered that such individuals must not be allowed to live to tell the story.

Aregbesola was quoted by The PUNCH as saying, “The most important thing is the security impregnability of this facility. Make this facility impregnable.

“It is a red zone, a danger zone. Whoever attempts to breach the security here is already dead. He must not live to tell the story. Other people will tell his or her story.

“Any effort to breach our facility is not acceptable. Don’t shoot to injure, shoot to kill. Don’t shoot to disable, shoot to kill.

“This is a total embodiment of the state to guarantee the security of the people.

“We will do our best regarding your welfare to ensure effective service. I must commend your work for not recording any case of COVID-19 in your facility.

“But most importantly, you must be effective in preventing the penetration of this facility. You must have the capacity to repel viciously any attempt to penetrate this facility.”