By MUSA DANJUMA
Special Correspondent, Maiduguri
WHEN the walls of Maiduguri Custodial Centre collapsed on 10 September 2024, from the furious waters of the broken Alau Dam, the bigger concern for the authorities of the Nigerian Correctional Service, NCoS, beyond Maiduguri, was the fate of a VIP prisoner. The flood swept away the prison, its staff quarters, and set 288 prisoners free. Only seven had been found. Heavy rains reportedly brought down the walls of the dam, two years after a major flooding that indicated the state of the dam.
The escape of the VIP prisoner or his death in the flood would have been too embarrassing to the authorities. A search for him commenced immediately. Where could he be? Did he escape? Was he safe?
Alau Dam is 25 kilometres outside Maiduguri, but its devastating hits on the city WERE “a disaster beyond human imagination”, as Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum described it. He was in tears.
The major inflow into Alau and Jere Bowl is from the Ngadda River, a tributary of the larger Yedzeram River, which originates in the Hudu Hills east of Mubi, Adamawa State, and flows north-west to Lake Chad. Heavy rain falls increase the strain on Alau.
The dam, commissioned in 1986, had caused flooding in 1992 when it exceeded its maximum storage level. It flooded the Jere Bowl. Two years later, a flash flood from the Yedzeram River affected Maiduguri badly. Torrential rainfall in 2012 opened Alau’s evacuation valve, flooding Maiduguri and nearby places. The dam holds 112 million cubic metres (4.0 billion cubic feet) of water. Its consistent over-flows and the resultant flooding indicate that another dam was required. The dam had been filled for weeks before it gave way on 10 September.
Unprepared for such emergency, unequipped for rescue of inmates in flooding and the headquarters living in denial, NCoS, Maiduguri, was in trouble. Without the assistance of sister agencies, things could have been worse.
“We were managing to stand on water and search for inmates. It was sheer bedlam. Confusion unknown to the order with which we run our facilities was on us,” an NCoS official told Daily Query. “We could not cope.”
“How many of us could swim? How many officers were on duty? Where would we get re-enforcement? It is difficult to describe what happened? The official quarters of NCoS were under water. Like everyone else in Maiduguri, officers were fighting to survive. Those whose families were in Maiduguri suffered more.”
It was in this setting that the swim chase after inmates changed when one of the officials shouted, “Where is Reverend King? Who has seen him?” There were no immediate answers.
“It would have been a most embarrassing thing if we could not account for him. He is a VIP prisoner,” the official continued.
“King is not difficult to identify. The beards are still there. It is just that in this type of emergency there was complete confusion. We just wanted to be sure it was him, in case someone has started wearing his goatee.
“Everyone was relieved when we found him. He was quickly evacuated to a safer facility. Calls were already being made, asking after his safety. But the calls didn’t get to us. We were under water,” said the official who refused to give details of how King was found, if he was escaping, or whether the rescue operations were at night or day time.
NCoS headquarters admitted the escape of 281 inmates four days after Sahara Reporters had run a report on the escape of inmates in Maiduguri. NCoS reacted to the earlier reports thus, “As the agency responsible for inmate safekeeping, we are taking all necessary measures to ensure public safety, including evacuating inmates to safer facilities, ensuring smooth operations, and collaborating with sister security agencies to provide support and assistance to those affected,” a Tuesday statement from Abubakar Umar, the NCoS media manager, read.
“The uppermost thing on our mind was to find King. None of you would understand the consequences of not finding him, or of him coming to harm, any type of harm,” the official who knows King in Maiduguri said.
He is also Chukwuemeka Ezeugo
Born Chukwuemeka Ezeugo in Umulekwe Village in Achina, Anambra State, Nigeria, he has a degree in Psychology from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. He is His Eminence, the Most Honourable, Dr. Reverend King, at the Christian Praying Assembly, a religious organisation he founded and led with a firm fist until his arrest in 2006 for murder. He is sometimes addressed as His Holiness, Dr. Reverend King.
Ezeugo admitted in court, in the course of his trial, that he assaulted his members: “I am a preacher. I know that the spirit of witchcraft is against the Almighty God. If somebody is a liar, he is bewitching God. I don’t condone lies. Dr. King does not condone sin. I flog a lot. I have canes. If husband and wife mess up by having misunderstanding, I have to settle them. But the person that is at fault, I must flog. If the person refuses to be flogged, I will send him out of the church.”
His posters appeared as a presidential candidate of the Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA), as Nigeria neared the 2019 elections. This could have been one of the measures to keep his name remembered. These measures include celebration of his birthday in the media, annually on 26 February. Nobody is sure how old he is.
Incidentally, 26 February is the date the Supreme Court confirmed his death sentence eight years ago.
Rev King’s journey to jail
In a journey that took 10 years, from his arrest to the verdict, King has been on the death row for eight years. He has been kept away from society in the past 18 years.
· 2006: Rev. King was arrested for pouring fuel on six of his church members and setting them on fire “for committing fornication”. One of them, Ann Uzoh, died 11 days after the incident.
· 26 September 2006: He was arraigned on a six-count charge of attempted murder and murder. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
· 11 January 2007: Justice Joseph Oyewale of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja, sentenced him to death.
· 2013: King lost at the Appeal Court. Said Justice Fatimo Akinbami, “This appeal is devoid of any basis and accordingly fails. The judgement of the High Court is hereby affirmed, and the conviction imposed on the appellant (which is death by hanging) is also affirmed.” Her two colleagues, Amina Augie and Ibrahim Saulawa, concurred.
· 26 February 2016: The Supreme Court upheld Reverend King’s death sentence. A seven-man panel of Justices led by Justice Walter Onnoghen, confirmed the death sentence in a verdict Justice Sylvester Ngwuta delivered. “This appeal has no merit. The judgement of the Court of Appeal is hereby affirmed. The prison sentence that was earlier handed to the appellant is no longer relevant in view of the death sentence passed on him,” he ruled.
He was held at the Kirikiri Prison. The number of his members who daily thronged the prison was said to be so high that the authorities decided to keep him some distance from Lagos. He was moved to Kano Custodial Centre – the crowds still came.
King’s movement to Maiduguri could have been informed by distance, and the security challenges of the area which tend to scare people.
Next: Where is Rev King?
Read about how he was ferried to safety and where he is.
Culled from Daily Query.
