Impressions of a Prison and the Inmates Within

 

“We should help out at the prisons”

So we are sitting down on a rather sunny Thursday morning in November (It is especially hot at this time and we are all talking quickly so as to get the meeting over and done with). The question before us is what project to undertake. The suggestions are many, varied and all valid until the prisons are suggested. We all pause to consider that not many people go there and they seem most in need of compassion. Everyone agrees that the prison is a good place to have an outreach and we all begin to make plans toward a visit. A few weeks, a lot of money and talk down the line and it is the day. So here we are all dressed up in our CDS shirts and assembled at the stadium.

First Sight

We eventually leave the stadium at about half past nine and in barely fifteen minutes we are at the prisons where we park and wait outside for our representatives to inform the wardens of our arrival. As we wait outside, I take the time to look around the large compound with a high gate at the far end. This gate is high and has only one narrow pedestrian gate that is opened for people to go in and out. The compound is very sanitary and open (ostensibly to prevent the prisoners from hiding anywhere should they ever manage to get out of that eye-of-a-needle gate).

After about forty-five minutes of waiting, during which we are all slightly worried that our representatives have joined the ranks of the inmates within, they emerge and inform us that we are to take no valuables inside the premises and so all phones, cameras and cash are deposited in one of the cars belonging to a member and we steady our nerves to pass through the gate into the main premises of the prison.

Within The Gates

Passing through the main gate, we wait in a small reception area having a second gate. There is a board of stats on the wall and I start to read and only then does the truth of tales about prisons begin to sink in. The first shock is the sheer number of prisoners – a staggering 898 people are incarcerated here. I wonder if we truly have so many criminals and what crimes they have committed. The stats get even more horrifying. Out of a total of 875 male inmates, only 72 have been convicted. So the official status of the others remains “awaiting trial” and there is only one convicted person out of 23 female inmates. As I am about to turn away, another statistic catches my eye. The capacity of this prison is 387.

I feel a chill that has nothing to do with the harmattan as I step through the second gate and I keep my eyes averted so as to avoid meeting a sight that might either scare me or move me to tears given my already unsteady nerves. We are conducted to the chapel where we will hold the health talk and as we enter, we see that the female prisoners are already seated. It is a sight to sadden the heart when I see that half of these women have children – one even with a month-old baby. A full two-thirds of the rest are elderly. There is a young girl there who I believe should be younger than I am and then I remember that virtually all these women are awaiting trial. We are given seats and we wait as the male prisoners are brought in. All ages between young men not old enough to have finished university education and elderly men who could be grandfathers are present here. All I can do is stare as it really hits me hard – the realization that anyone, but anyone could be here among these people.

“My family doesn’t know where I am!”

The preliminary meeting doesn’t take very long and soon it is time to begin the counselling and consultation. My task is to organise the people who have to receive counselling and consultations and to keep records and it involves my going into the midst of the seated inmates. At first, I am scared and very reluctant to go but when I remember that Jesus touched lepers, I wonder if I am not being a bit supercilious with this but the work is abundant and I soon forget all my scruples.

During the counselling, I take a break just to get some weight off my feet and I happen to overhear parts of a conversation. The man is a Yoruba man from Ondo state, perhaps middle aged but the life here makes it difficult to tell, who was taken here when he travelled this way a while ago and got in some trouble. As far as he knows, no one in his family knows where he is and he has been here for almost a year if not more. He asks if we can contact anyone in his family. As I hear this, I wonder how many missing persons cases have ended up like this man in prisons all over the country.

As We Leave

We work until it is almost half past one when we are informed that the prisoners have to go back to their cells and we rush through seeing the rest of them while gathering our things. We eventually get outside the gates and get some refreshments before we go off. As we are standing there, we see a Black Maria pull up with new prisoners. Some SSS operatives are positioned to guard the prisoners and ensure that they do not escape. As the last of them enters the prisons, I wonder if they have been convicted and if their families know where they are.

 

 

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For Those Whose Pain is Forgotten

I sit at work this Friday morning watching the old videos of Michael Jackson and all those people who sang for world peace back in the day when it was more attainable (I work in a media house so watching TV is my job. But believe me, it gets old fast) and the images that play across remind me of the mission trip I went on the day before.

I joined the health campaign CDS – Community Development Service group and although my initial reasons for joining were not altogether altruistic, I feel like I am doing more to better the society than I could have otherwise. So here we are holding our meetings every week as prescribed and we get invited to take part in a medical outreach at a location I’ll call GBU local government within the state.

We get in the bus and start off on the hour and a half drive it takes to get to the location. After about an hour, we are completely out of the capital and have left all proof of civilization behind. We travel for the rest of the way on dirt roads and as we pass, clouds of dust rise and choke us like incense from a burner in a mallam’s shack. There are no electricity poles to give hope that sometime in the immediate future, the electricity grid will be extended to these parts. Streams and hand pumps provide water to this community and so the risk of ring worm is high.

We arrive at the local government development centre, which is the only brick building we have seen in a while and the first sight that meets our eyes is a large field packed full of people – natives of various ages but mostly elderly waiting under the blistering sun for medical attention. As we alight, I comment to a friend that it’s at moments like these that I feel NYSC is not a complete waste of time.

I am not a doctor – not even medical personnel so as soon as I help set up, I take on the self – appointed task of activity documentation. When I tire of this task or finish it – although I like to think it was the latter, I go to sit beside the doctors. Even my untrained eye can see the traces of malnutrition and premature aging caused by hardness of life on the people.

I see a child come in who says she’s nine. I am incredulous because she looks four but the doctors seem to accept it and they document accordingly. A man comes in who was blinded in one eye during the Biafra war and whose other eye went blind soon after. He is sixty years old now and most likely would never access or afford the medical care he needs. I see an ageing man who comes in with a lot of complaints and is possibly diabetic but has never been diagnosed and suffers because of that. A middle – aged woman who has complaints that indicate the beginnings of a cardiac condition and who still actively farms her plot of land is there as well.  The doctors attend to a lot of people till about three but even then they have barely taken care of half of the people who turned up and they are exhausted – the heat hasn’t helped. We walk a short distance to the nearby home of a notable member of the community for lunch and to rest.

We leave at about five pm for our base in the capital and although I feel like we’ve done a good work here, I know that it hardly puts a dent on the problems of this community and others like it. These people may seem singularly unfortunate but there are so many other communities worse off than they like the Effium community where a mission outreach held a few months back. Many people will never get to see these people first hand and see the conditions under which they are forced to live. Even for I who have seen, it seems too painful to remember and subconsciously I’ll try to erase it when I get back to the comfort of my familiar surroundings. I write this for them. So that we can remember those whose pain is forgotten.