Scene One: Conviction. Location: Federal High Court, Ikoyi. Year: 2016.
Tunji “Light” Adebayo was no rookie. At 32, he already had a reputation on the streets of Lagos — one of those sharp guys with baby-face charm and an Excel sheet full of fake identities. He wasn’t violent, but his scams were. International wire fraud, fake property deals, ATM cloning — his mind was a maze of manipulation.
He thought he was untouchable.
Until they touched him.
On a humid Tuesday morning, he was convicted. 7 years. No fine. No appeal. Just cold cement and iron bars waiting at Kirikiri Maximum Prison.
Scene Two: The Observation Phase. 3 months in.
Most prisoners break in prison. Tunji studied. He noticed how the guards behaved — how they got bored, how some collected small tips to look away. He watched their routines, shifts, uniforms, language. He made friends with the laundry boys. Helped fix a broken electric fan in the admin block. Learned names. Memorized ID numbers. Mapped their patterns.
They thought he was “humbling himself.” He was actually installing himself.
Scene Three: The Switch.
One Thursday afternoon, during a routine sanitation exercise, Tunji vanished.
Panic spread. Sirens blared. Prison officials scrambled. Cells were checked. Walls inspected. Nothing. No break-in. No signs of climbing. No bodies.
For two weeks, he was classified as “missing under internal compromise.”
What they didn’t know?
Tunji never left.
Scene Four: Inside the System.
Using a uniform stolen from laundry duty and a fake tag he designed from scratch, Tunji disguised himself as a low-ranking prison auxiliary officer.
He moved freely. Greeted other guards. Even carried out minor errands. He swept. He patrolled. He assisted with food logs. Nobody questioned him — because he played invisible. Too normal to be suspicious.
In fact, he once escorted visitors out after visiting hours. Some even called him Officer Tunji.
It wasn’t until a visiting officer from Abuja noticed him signing off a document with his real surname that the lie began to crack.
Scene Five: The Catch.
They ran a background check.
No file. No hiring records. No training history. Just a ghost in uniform.
Tunji was arrested — again — this time from inside the very system that imprisoned him. The headlines the next day read:
Nigeria should have learned a lesson from this Instead of just keeping them in prison they should be use as spy or something similar We have alot of hackers among them they are just spending the rest of their lifes in prison with no usefulness to the country
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“The Prisoner Who Escaped… By Becoming A Prison Guard”