BEHIND THE HIGH WALLS OF KIRIKIRI: THE INTRIGUING WORLD OF PRISONERS

From the gates, it was glaring that this was not just any place to visit. From
the high walls, to the stern looking armed uniformed  men, the ferocious
dogs ready to attack any intruder, it, indeed,  was a no-go area unless
you have a good reason to visit. This is Kirikiri Prisons! For long, much has been said about the
deplorable state of prisons in Nigeria,  and the adverse health
implications on inmates, with successive governments accused of negligence.

More worrisome is the fact that inmates get back
into the society hardened after serving their sentences, thereby frustrating
security operatives’ efforts to curb criminal activities.

According to the Act, the name change is “to underscore the humane aspect of the reform focus of prisons administrations and to conform to provisions in the international instrument.”

The National Assembly also approved a recommendation that deleted the words ‘hard labour’ and replaced it with ‘prison labour’ in theAct, as it noted that “hard labour” was an inheritance from the  colonial era.

Sunday Vanguard , on Monday, visited the three prisons in Kirikiri area of Lagos comprising the Maximum, Medium and Female Security Prisons.

The  reporter’s first port of call was the Maximum Security Prisons. But that was not without being escorted by prisons officials. The sight that greeted me  on arrival was the neat environment and well- trimmed lawn tennis courts, as well as a football pitch, where inmates go to in the evening for exercise and leisure.

At the reference hospital of the Maximum Security Prisons, for instance, there are  no less than 30 beds, a far cry from the number of inmates who come for treatment daily. At least, 100 inmates reportedly visit the hospital daily for all sorts of ailments. The hospital also takes care of Zone A of the prisons service comprising Lagos and Ogun states. There were also facilities for ante-natal and post-natal care as well as x-ray and laboratory where inmates blood samples are tested.

The common ailments among inmates, as observed during the visit, are  malaria, high blood pressure and skin infection which is rampant among inmates, particularly those at the Medium Prisons.

But Dr Edwin Itemeson (doctor on duty) said the hospital was a referral hospital and  well equipped for its day-to-day running. He hinted that cases beyond their capacity are usually transferred to the Navy reference hospital or government hospitals.

Sunday Vanguard met  two patients on admission at the Maximum Security Prisons hospital; one of them, a condemned convict, CC, said to have multiple problems  of  asthma, inguinal scrota hernia, and  hypertension. The 68 year-old inmate, said to have been transferred from Abeokuta Prisons, said  the treatment he was receiving at the prisons kept him alive.

But some of the inmates, as gathered, have mental disorder. While some of them were said to have been brought into the prison in that state, others reportedly developed it from depression. The psychologist on duty spoke on the inmates:

“Basically, what we do here is to provide psychological intervention services for both inmates and staff. At times, doctors do refer to us inmates that have psychological problems from other prisons and we send those we cannot handle at our own level out. So far, it has been so good. At other times, psychiatrists come here to consult with them and when they do not have time, we take the inmates there. At other times, those with bizarre cases are advised to indulge in sporting activities”.

Life in the prisons Life behind the prison walls can be likened to that outside. But the distinctive difference is freedom! Whereas inmates are confined to the prisons vicinity with high walls shielding them from the outside world, the man outside, on his part, has the privilege to move about at will.

You can do your sports in the prisons just like it is outside; formal and informal education as well as vocational skills are also obtainable in the prisons. Inmates with degrees from various fields are school  teachers in the prisons.

An interesting case was that of a 68- year-old lifer, who reportedly used the opportunity to fulfill what he described as ‘a life time dream’. According to the inmate, who simply identified  himself as Jonathan :“I have always dreamt of going to school. But I was deprived the opportunity because of the civil war. I later joined the police, in the course of which I killed someone. I was brought here in 1994. At first, I was slammed a condemned convict verdict but, later, my case was heard and I was given a lifer. In the course of moving on with my life, I decided to actualize my dream by going to school here. I started right from primary 1 and today I am in JSS 2 and will complete my secondary education if I am not let out by then. In the face of this, I am grateful that I am able to achieve a life time dream,” he said.

Aside the primary and secondary levels of education, there are also inmates attending the Open University. When Sunday Vanguard visited, they were writing their examination.

Officer in Charge of Welfare, Chukwuemeka Patrick, a Deputy Comptroller of Prisons, said the aim of establishing the schools was to ensure total transformation of  inmates.

“We coordinate all activities such as vocational and recreational, as well as religious. As you know, religion has a very big role to play in transformation,” Patrick said.

“In the school, we have primary and secondary units. The school sees to the remedial aspect of  inmates  education—for those of them who never had the privilege of education before coming to prison or those that dropped out as a result of their lifestyles out there before they came to prison. The school has been in existence for about 15 years. There is also a GCE centre that has been on for 10 years.

“Over the years, we have always recorded more than 90 per cent success in our GCE results. WAEC has even given us commendation several times because of the work we are doing here. In the course of time, we felt there was a need to take it a step further. That is why we came about partnership and collaboration with Open University. And this university has been in existence for about seven years. We have inmates in different disciplines:Law, criminology, name it… There is no discipline in the conventional universities that you do not find in the Open University here.

“Before we even started the Open University, we had a JAMB centre, especially for those of them that were about to leave the prison. We started that JAMB centre so that they could  take their JAMB here and, as they leave, they will go straight into the university without any break. It is just part of making sure that they do not fall into that former life style of theirs”. It was also learnt that prison authorities bear all the expenses in the running of the schools with assistance from non-governmental organizations because of the limitation of budgetary allocation.

Contrary to the notion that prison is mainly for robbers,pick pockets and murders, the rich and well to do  in the society are also confined in the same cells with the common  man. Some of the inmates were discovered to be bank staff.

Interaction with inmates
Most of the Kirikiri Prisons inmates have taken their destinies in their hands by carrying on with life. Some of them were seen sewing, barbing ,knitting and even carrying out laundry work.  One of the inmates, slammed with a five years jail term over rape , told Sunday Vanguard: “ I sew both male and female shirts and I sell them for between N1,500 and N2,500. I save the money realized from the sales , so that when I leave here, I will get something to fall back on”.

I find fulfillment in teaching-inmate
Another inmate, who did not want his name mentioned, was seen teaching in a JSS 2 class. For him, “ this is the only way I can impact on people. This is also the only way I can keep myself busy and forget about the confinement. It was not easy getting others consent. But after much persuasion, I made them understand prison is not the end of life and here I am, fulfilling an aspect of my potentials”.

I miss my family-pregnant inmate
Another inmate , a pregnant woman, who was slammed a 21 year jail for manslaughter, looked pale when approached. But she reluctantly opened up, saying, “ I miss my family, particularly my two children.. If the hand of the clock could be turned back, I would have refrained from the temptation that led to my being here today. I have only served four months out of the 21 years term. I wonder if my children who are five and three years old respectively will recognize me at the end of the jail term. It has never been my intention to be in prison . But here I am , pregnant at that”.

‘I am happy I was in prison’
One of the pathetic and, at the same time, encouraging narrations  came from an ex-convict who simply gave his name as Matthew.

When asked what his mission at the prisons  was, he replied: “I came to see my brothers, my fathers and the warders . I am what I am today because of the warders. I never regretted coming to prison . In fact, I am happy that I was in prison.. I still remember how I was treated when I got to prison. You know what? I made my WASSCE in the prison in 2006. The first one I wrote, WAEC seized my result. They said they could not find my result in their system. I reported to the warder in charge, who wrote a petition to that effect. Today, I am out. But I will not want to mention my name because of  stigmatization. . People out there believe it is better to be in the grave than to be in prison. But this is not true”.

The following conversation with him ensued:
You said what your parents could not do the warders did. What exactly did the warders do?

Yes. What my parents could not do, the warders did. You want to know how?” They turned the hand of the clock around for me. You will not understand. When I got to the prison, they made me understand that in the prison there were potentials.

You see, the prison in Nigeria was set up basically to detain criminals and offenders. But the warders, out of  their own initiative, brought out good programmes of which I am a product today.

I was a very stubborn person. They had to talk me into going to school by encouraging me that there was more I could do with my life than wallow in self-rejection. After writing my WASSCE, I wrote my Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) exam in prison in 2007. But the result was bad. I felt bad and decided not to write JAMB again. But Mr Obariwo (a warder) called me and said ‘examination was not a true test of knowledge, write another one’ and I wrote another one and passed. After that, I went ahead and studied a four-year course on  criminology and security, here in the Maximum Prison.

I spent seven years and six months here. But you know what? I was never judged! I went to court for years but my case was never tried.

What offense brought you here?
Armed robbery. But by sheer divine intervention, I am out today and currently engaged in a private firm. My advice to government is to reform warders whose responsibility it is to reform the inmates. Because if they are not reformed, they can not reform inmates. Just like my father will always say, you cannot put a cat in the custody of meat. So, for them to do what government wants, let the government give them what it takes for them to put in more. The warders are working hard. If they could reform me, they can reform another person.

It was observed that even in the prisons, the inmates sometimes choose  what to eat. For instance, the inmates at the Maximum Security Prisons prefer their beans to be prepared in two different ways; beans porridge and ordinary beans without  condiments. As for their eba, they prefer it a little solid. But for the female inmates, eba is a no-go area. Rather, they prefer Semovita.

One spectacular sight at the female prisons  was that of a woman with her two months old baby. When approached, she simply smiled, rocking her baby, refusing to speak.

Some other women were also discovered to be pregnant. In response to the question on this reporter’s mind, Deputy Comptroller of Prisons in-charge of the Female Prisons, Mrs Onwuli Isioma Leticia, explained that the women were brought to the prison pregnant.

Congestion
Kirikiri Prisons are congested owing to the increasing number of awaiting trial persons (ATP). At the time of visit, a total of 52,754 persons were reportedly in prisons across the country. Out of this number, over 34,000 were awaiting trial, a development said to have posed challenges  to prisons officers in the area of transforming inmates.

At the Maximum Security Prisons, there were 752 inmates out of which 418 were awaiting trial. The Female Prisons  had a total of 183 persons with 146 awaiting trial while the Medium Prisons had the highest number of  2,248 persons awaiting trial out of a total of 2,395 persons. These figures, as gathered, increase on daily basis, in spite of shortage of prisons staff.

It  was observed that the major factor militating against efforts by the Nigeria Prisons Service staff to efficiently carry out their constitutional responsibility is congestion owing to the increasing number of awaiting trial persons.

“The major challenge presently is that we have too much volume of awaiting trial inmates in majority of the prisons in Nigeria, especially the urban prisons and this has to do with the problem of Criminal Justice System. It is only when the population of awaiting trial inmates reduces that we will be able to properly carry out the rehabilitation and reformation work on inmates. What you don’t understand is that it is difficult for a prison officer to train somebody who is awaiting trial in the prison, but he will train those convicted and sentenced.

“As they come in, we ask them what they can do; tailoring, carpentry, laundry, gardening, woodwork and other vocations we have in the prison. Then we train them by trying to associate them with whatever vocation they want to learn. But for the awaiting trial inmates, it is also morally unfair for somebody who is awaiting trial to be approached and say ‘will you like to learn a vocation?’ The guy will believe that he has not been proven guilty and will not be ready to succumb to learning any trade. He will just be ready for the court to call him for his case”, the Nigerian Prisons National Public Relations Officer, Mr Kayode Odeyemi, said.

Prisons sources told Sunday Vanguard that the continuous rise in the population of persons awaiting trial, in a sense, was traceable to the ineptitude of the police, their allied agencies and  the office of the Director of Public Prosecution in the various states. These bodies are constitutionally responsible for the prosecution of criminal cases in Nigeria.

Many awaiting trial persons are victims of circumstances, but then, they deserve to be given fair trial within reasonable time; otherwise  it would be a case of human rights violation.

Adjournment of cases is another tool discovered to be employed.  “Even though prisons authorities are doing all they can to better the lots of inmates put in their care, it is imperative for government and other concerned bodies to address the issue of awaiting trial persons. The reform envisaged in this circumstance should be holistic and should extend to the assessment of the roles of police, courts and other related agencies in causing dilemma for the nation in the areas of management of the prison services and judicial administration,”one of the sources stated.