A visit to the prison – By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Last week I volunteered to accompany the Zarephath Aid on a prison visit. We cannot stop repeating ad nauseam that given the uncommon hellish condition under which Nigerian prisoners live and the animalistic punishment meted out to them, the Nigerian prisons cannot, by stretch of imagination, be re-baptized as correctional centres. There is nothing correctional about the Nigerian prisons let alone police detention dungeons. If anything, the Nigerian prisons are punitive centres or punishment centres. This is why people go into Nigerian prisons as normal human beings but come out as tattered, disfigured, de-moralized and depraved human beings. So, needless labeling Nigerian prisons as correctional centres.

Anyway, Zarephath Aid is a dynamic Lagos-based Non-governmental organization (NGO) committed over the last 17 years to tackling the multiple woes befalling the Awaiting Trial Inmates (ATM) in the various Nigerian prisons through a three-pronged action point namely-pro bono legal Aid aimed at securing the liberty of the unjustly detained ATM, improving their worsening living condition (including their welfare and medication) and prison rehabilitation in Nigeria. Prior to the visit last week, my learned friend Ben Abraham Esquire who is the founder and Executive Director, Zarephath Aid, had been telling me that rather than sit down and complain that Nigeria is not good or complain that one man has been misleading Nigeria in the last 7 years, he and his colleagues had erected a veritable framework under Zarephath Aid in order to chart a veritable course towards enthroning the much-vaunted criminal justice system reform in Nigeria. For example, since inception, Zarephath Aid has been instrumental in the release of over 1,000 indigent prisoners who had been languishing in the Kirikiri Maximum prison, Medium prison, Ikoyi Prison, Shagamu prison and other prisons across Nigeria. In fact Zarephath Aid had sponsored the construction of a skill Centre for the benefit of the prisoners in Shagamu prison.

Swayed by the foregoing remarkable achievements and track records of Zarephath Aid, I had no choice last week but to volunteer to accompany the NGO on a visit to the prison (name withheld). The purpose of the visit was clear to all of us. We were not visiting the prison to give food and drinks to the hungry and visibly-emaciated prisoners. Neither were we visiting the prison to cast and bind demons out of the prisoners. We visited to render pro bono legal services to the prisoners aimed at securing their freedom as well as explore the possibility of helping the sick prisoners to regain their health.

The prison warder heartily welcomed us. Having spent seven grueling years at an orthopedic hospital receiving painful medical treatment after he and his son fell off a cruising okada commercial bike, he has acquired compassion for the suffering members of our humanity. He is a good man. He went out his way to take us round the prison premises. Out of the 3,012 prisoners sheltered in the old dilapidating prison, only 163 had been convicted by a court of law, 285 have been charged to court while the rest have been languishing in prison without trial and without bail. He showed us the blocked prison soakaway oozing out with stinking human faeces. There are two churches and a mosque in the prison for religious worship. Out of curiosity, I entered into a sizable Catholic Church situate there in the prison. I saw some prisoners lying on the floor and on the benches of the church sleeping away unto the Lord. As I was leaving the church, a prisoner who introduced himself as the Catechist of the Catholic Chaplaincy, ran up to me and said, “Sir, there two prisoners here who are now spending their eight years in this prison because they don’t have N20,000 to perfect their bail granted them”. I felt sad. I turned, looked at him with pity and told him to write their names and hand them over to us.

We met two nurses on duty at the Prison Sick Bay. The head nurse confided in us that there was an outbreak of hyena ailment in the prison resulting in 27 prisoners being afflicted with hyena. N80, 000 needed to treat each prisoner-patient. The second nurse on duty raised an alarm that a prisoner was dying and needed to stay alive with the sum of N25, 000 required to purchase his essential drugs. Filled with pity for the dying prisoner, one of us instantly donated the said sum of N25, 000 to the prisoner. Before departing the Sick Bay, the nurses gave us a long list (41 on the whole) of essential drugs and medicals urgently needed by the prisoners such as Amoxicillin, cough syrup, priton, cotton wool, face mask, inhaler, chloroquine, liquid paraffin, Multivitamin (1 x 1000), Buscopan, medicated soap, Izal, sulphur ointment, vitamin C 100 mg (1×1000), septrin, Amiclox 500 mg, scalp vein and so forth.  The nurses told us that soya beans, corn and sugar are urgently needed in the prison. After leaving the Sick Bay and heading out, I looked backward and saw some sickly prisoners following us from behind and shouting; “Master, give us money to buy food”, “We are hungry”, “Give us food”.

On returning to the warder’s office located near the entrance door of the prison, we requested for ATM who had spent up to 10 years in prison without trial and without bail. First to show up was a prisoner supposedly in his late 60s who has been in prison since 2010 on alleged armed robbery. “Oga mi, I don’t suffer here. I am innocent.  The only thing sustaining me here is prayer”, he said to us. We gathered that the suit against him had since been struck out by the court yet the poor man remains dumped in prison. We saw another ATM who had spent 12 years in prison without trial and without bail. He was a victim of SARS’ lawlessness. He was dumped in prison precisely on 9th March 2012 and has been in detention from that 2012 to date without trial and without bail even after the DPP report testifies that he is innocent. He told us that they are 17 prisoners cramped together in his tiny suffocating cell. Mosquitoes feast on their bodies at night. His wife and children have abandoned him. Nobody visits him. He has no money to hire a lawyer to plead his innocence. He pities his last son (15 years) who once visited him in prison and went back home in tears. He told us that he is confident that God who created him will not allow him to die in prison. As the prisoners were talking to us two of us were busy taking down notes so that afterwards we would render them pro-bono legal services. We met other ATM. Lest I forget we met one 19-year old young man who has lost his senses in prison. He was just moping at us, unable to utter a word. We met other ATM who were arrested and dumped in prison for years without trial and without bail for wandering or for affray (fighting). Before we finally departed the prison, the prison warden complained that the prison premises are always dark at night because most of the electric bulbs had burnt out and needed urgent replacement.

We left the prison world exasperated but with a resolution to do all within our capacity to secure the liberty of the prisoners we encountered in prison. We also resolved to get some paramedical companies and individuals to donate drugs and medicals to the prisoners. Relying on a survey conducted by Travesty of Justice, an advocacy and human rights group in Nigeria, 70% (if not more) of prisoners languishing in the various Nigerian prisons are ATM. For 40 years or even more, we have been living on the empty promise of the government that it is committed to reform the prisons and revamp Nigeria’s appalling criminal justice system. Successive governments and Attorneys-General have made stronger commitments in this direction only to woefully fail to do anything afterwards. Monies being budgeted for prison reforms and welfare of prisoners sadly end up in private pockets.

How long will we continue to be in this mess? As at last week Zarephath had filed the court processes to enforce the fundamental human rights of those prisoners we met during our visit. This is the seriousness we are waiting for. Away with empty rhetoric. We need concrete action. Like Zarephath Aids, public-spirited individuals, NGOs, Corporate organizations, Churches, Mosques, Office of Public Defenders in Lagos, NBA Human Rights Committees and others should rally to the assistance of the Nigerian prisoners. Let’s stop waiting for a government that may never come. Happily, Duty Solicitors Network (DSN), an initiative of the Human Rights Committee, NBA, Lagos Branch, has recently been visiting Lagos Police Stations and Magistrates to ensure that criminal suspects do not suffer unnecessary injustices. Other branches of the NBA across the country should imbibe this sterling example of the Human Rights Committee of the NBA, Lagos Branch. All hands must now be on deck towards decongesting the Nigerian prisons and securing the freedom of ATM across Nigerian prisons.