The minister, who spoke to news men shortly after an emergency National Security Council (NSC) meeting convened by President Muhammadu Buhari, said that the government was taken by surprise by the attackers, saying that the incidence is being investigated.
Dingyadi said that some of the attackers were killed during the raid, but did not provide a figure, but that the terrorists could have taken the corpses away.
“You see this kind of thing; they happen. And I want to assure you that all those who are supposed to play a role in ensuring that the attack is neutralized did the best that they could to neutralize it.
“I think what helped them (terrorists) was the number of people they came with and the superior weapons that they came with.
“And because nobody anticipated it, the few people who were there guarding the place could not withstand the number that they came with. I think that was what happened.
“Some of them have been killed. But I can’t give you the number, and I don’t know the number. Because like they used to do, whenever one of them is killed, they take the corpse away, and you cannot know the number of people who have been killed. But definitely, quite a number of them were killed, and many of them ran away with bullet wounds.”
The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) had since claimed responsibility for the attack, which led to the freeing of about 69 suspected Boko Haram terrorists held in the prison, as well as some other inmates.
The government had earlier said that 879 inmates, including all the Boko Haram suspects, escaped. A kidnap kingpin, Hamisu Bala, popularly known as Wadume, was among the suspect who escaped.
The onslaught led to the death of five persons, including an officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence (NSCDC) and four inmates.
An undisclosed number of others were wounded.
