■ ‘Prison prepared us for big crimes’
Prisons all over the world are meant to be refor¬mation centres, places where criminals go to and get a second chance in life. But in Nigeria, the prisons avail petty thieves or miscreants the opportunity to hone their skills and come out bigger and better robbers. Or how else does one explain a situation where people go into the penitentiary, espe¬cially Kirikiri Prisons, and come out hardened criminals, worse off than they were before going behind bars?
Here are some examples of inmates who got prepared for big crimes in the prison:
For more than 14 years, a man held South-west Nigeria captive. He was not just an armed robber; he was a killer of policemen. He even bragged about being responsible for the death of over 50 policemen. He became rich and built mansions. He even mar¬ried multiple wives. His name is Abiodun Ogunjobi (a.k.a Abbey Godogodo). He finally fell into police net late last year.
According to police authorities, Godogodo, as part of his exploits, led a gang that killed seven people, including the owner of 04 Hotel, Ajah, Lagos, Olanrewaju Subair, on July 7, 2013. They also killed two other security guards at a popular hotel along Apapa Road, Ebute Meta area of the state on the same day.
Godogodo had told newsmen during a police parade in Lagos that he first went to prison for fighting. “I spent about seven years in Kirikiri Prison. My prolonged stay in prison for minor crime of fighting hardened me and I vowed to pay back the police for that injustice.”
Godogodo was not taught or advised to learn any form of trade or craft while in prison. “Since I was awaiting trial, I was told by some of the inmates that I was not entitled to any form of counseling or training. In the prison, there are lots of people and as expected, I had to associate with people who reason the same way.
“It was there that I met seasoned robbers who shared their life experiences with us. They taught us how and where to source for weapon. As a very sharp boy, I listened attentively. That was why it took police many years to track me down.”
Godogodo said also that there so many criminals in the prison who are just waiting for their lawyers to secure their bail. “In prison you will learn what it takes to succeed because of the various experiences you must have got by interacting with others. If I had the opportu¬nity then, to equip myself while in prison, I could have been a better person.”
When asked whether he was advised to volunteer himself for training, Godogodo said: “I was awaiting trial for seven years and I was told that as long as I was not convicted, that no one could force me to go for counseling. I am not the only one, there are so many of us and most of them are already prepared and fortified to go back to the same crime, but in a better way.
“After I was released, I went to Katangowa in Iyana-Ipaja area of Lagos to meet my friend, Odun.” And together they launched a career of terror with a long trail of blood and sorrow.
Chigozie Orji and the other members of his gang of armed robbers also perfected their skills in crime while in prison. They were re-arrested weeks after their release from Kirikiri Medium Prison when operatives of Special Anti Robbery Squad, Ikeja police command, nabbed their main re¬ceiver of stolen goods, Adedokun Adewusi. Adewusi, who had been on the wanted list of the police, was arrested at his Labak Estate, Abule Egba home. The other members of Chigozie’s gang – all ex-convicts and former awaiting trial inmates – include Henry Adebanjo, Adigun Kareem and Chigozie Esika.
Chigozie, 35, kept repeating that he would assist police to find the rest if the officers were willing to charge his case to court. Why was he so interested in the case going to court? He wanted to go to prison where he believed he would have an opportunity to gain more experience.
“I was arrested last year over a minor offence and as God will have it, I was charged to court. In prison, you get to meet a lot of people. Most of them have been arrested more than five times. They were the ones who advised me on how to go about it. Luckily, my family members had not given up on me. They raised N250,000 for a lawyer who applied for my bail. It was the lawyer who told me that If I wanted to regain freedom, I should reserve at least N250,000 as his legal fees. He advised that my main concern should always be to leave the police detention alive.”
Shortly after he secured his free¬dom, Chigozie went back to crime. He recruited some young men that he met in prison. “In prison, you get to meet all kinds of people. We have an association that looks out for those who are awaiting trial especially if it is robbery related. They are the ones that will link you up with their lawyers. I also got more training on how best to go about robbery without being detected.”
Juliet Albert, 35, a native of Utu village, Egbema Local Gov¬ernment Area, Rivers State was arrested recently as a member of a four-member robbery gang. Juliet is also an ex-inmate of Kirikiri Prison where she had spent four months after being jailed for selling Indian hemp and other hard drugs.
As it turned out, Juliet’s sojourn in the prison had not been helpful, as she had become a far worse criminal, a member of a robbery gang.
She also revealed that many inmates spent their time in prison learning more about crime.
Juliet said she would not have got involved with Ugochukwu, the leader of her robbery gang, if she had learnt any lessons from her time in Kirikiri.
“I was charged to court for being in possession of Indian hemp and was later sent to Kirikiri Prison where I stayed for four months. I was freed on May 20, 2013.
“I learnt sewing while I was in prison, but let me tell you the naked truth: there was nothing to learn in prison. Rather the prison hardens the inmates because of the hard life there. I was lucky to have been selected as one of the cooks that prepared food for the inmates.
“I would have continued as a food vendor when I came out of prison, but I had no mon¬ey. We used to prepare half-cooked beans, which we ate with gari. We also ate eba with ordinary soup. No meat. Only church people bring good food on Sundays. Inmates who have rich relations also get good food because they get money from their people with which they buy food outside.
“Prison soup has no meat. It is only on Fridays that they put fish.
“When I returned from prison, I started selling ogogoro. I stopped selling Indian hemp because it was what sent me to prison. I was arrested this time because of my boy¬friend, Ugochukwu.”
Similarly, another ex-inmate has booked a return ticket to Kirikiri where he had spent seven years earlier. Faruk Lawal, a Kiriki¬ri ‘alumnus’ who left the prison just four months ago was recently arrested when his gang snatched a car from its owner in Yaba, Lagos.
According to the Lagos Police Commis¬sioner, Kayode Aderanti, Lawal and his part¬ner were arrested few hours after snatching the car from its owner and a search conduct¬ed on the suspects revealed that they had in their possession one double barrel pistol, two single barrel pistols and 28 live cartridges.
After his arrest Lawal lamented: “If I had listened to my instinct, I would not have been involved. It means I am returning to prison where I spent seven years. I was released just four months ago with a promise to turn a new leaf.”
Kabiru Akinsanya is another graduate of Kirikiri who has again secured admission for higher learning in prison. A pipeline vandal, Akinsanya was recently arrested in Tak¬wa Bay, Lagos by the Police Special Task Force on Anti-Pipeline Vandalism, Force Headquarters Annex, Lagos, after security operatives discovered a ruptured pipeline owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
Akinsanya said, “Shortly after I was released from prison where I spent two years, my friends told me to join them in the business (oil pipeline vandalism). Luckily, I became so good in the business because during my stay in prison, I learnt plumbing.”
Just last month, another suspect was arrested by the operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), for hiring armed robbers to attack and steal from his uncle, one Prince Ororogu Ererie, in Festac Town, Lagos.
Luck, however, ran out on the suspect, 25-year-old Emmanuel Ererie, when his uncle sensed danger and alerted the police who stormed the house and arrested two of the robbers while the others fled. Emmanuel immediately relocated to Delta State when he learnt that the operation had failed. But he was soon fished out.
Following his arrest, Ererie confessed to the crime, saying his uncle was stingy and had refused to take care of him. He also con¬fessed to having made a duplicate of the keys to his uncle’s room and stealing from him a number of times. He disclosed that on one occasion, “I entered the room, took the car key of one of his latest cars and drove off. I just wanted to use it and cruise around town. Unfortunately, I had an accident and the car was destroyed beyond repair.” Ererie’s uncle had him arrested and he was subsequently jailed.
While at the Kirikiri Medium Prison, Ererie, aided by other inmates, hatched a revenge mission against his uncle. Upon his release, he sent armed robbers after his uncle, but they were not very lucky. “I made friends in prison and most of them were armed robbery suspects. They taught me how to go about it. They also linked me up with Innocent Ibeh who left prison few weeks after I was jailed. After I regained my freedom in May 2014, I decided to teach my uncle a lesson.”
In the same vein, 31-year-old Azeez Adebayo, a native of Ifo in Ogun State upon his release from Kirikiri Prison in 2012 went back to crime. He was again arrested earlier this year during an undercover operation by the police.
The young man who hid a locally-made gun in a disc player for easy movement travelled to Lagos to join an armed robbery gang for an operation. He travelled to Lagos from Ifo with the gun and ended up in police net where he realized that the men he was to undertake the robbery operation with were undercover policemen. And he could not stop gnashing his teeth. But from the lies etched on Adebayo’s teeth, you can almost swear he will get right back whenever he regains his freedom.
Psychologists and sociologists have often wondered why people who went to prisons in Nigeria as petty offenders always come out as hardened criminals. Mr. Dele Ojogbe¬de is a Lagos-based lawyer and a social commentator. The major reason he identified for the trend is the lack of adequate facilities for the care of the inmates.
“In a room, you can find more than 15 inmates. Meanwhile, that is a room that is supposed to take two or three people. In most cases, they pass urine and faeces within the same room they occupy; and there is no water and other amenities that can make life more worthwhile for them.”
At the end of the day, these people get the feeling that they are not wanted by the soci¬ety, the lawyer argued. “They are being giv¬en subhuman treatment and that is capable of causing psychological condition so that by the time they are released, they would feel that the society does not care about them. In such a situation, they feel like going back to crime; particularly when they come out and they are not reintegrated into the society. In most cases, they cannot find jobs and they are bound to feel unwanted by the society.”
While tasking Nigerians on the need to help ex-convicts reintegrate upon their release, Ojogbede said the major work is ac¬tually for the government. “The government has much to do in reforming the prison. They need to create the enabling environment for prisoners to be reformed by making sure that money budgeted for prisons are being spent on the prisons. And that the facilities at the prisons meet up with international stan-dards. There is something called minimum standards of civilization in international law. There is a standard that every country is required to comply with. If you fall below that standard, it is the people that will suffer for it.
“By the time someone goes to prison and receives reformatory treatment, he will more likely come out a better person. I am aware that pastors and imams normally go there to preach, but it should go beyond that. Prisoners should be given good food; expose them to different trades so that they can become useful to themselves and the society when they come out. Some can learn shoe making, tailoring, hairdressing, etc. so that when they come out they will not be looking for employment.”
Some of the inmates can even become assets to the society, Ojogbede further held. “They can set up something and help themselves. There are some inmates that will eventually become assets to the society. If you give them, for example, a mini-stadi¬um, some of them can become footballers, boxers, etc.”
On what can be done to reduce the rate of awaiting trial inmates in the nation’s prisons, the lawyer said the judiciary needs to be more proactive in handling cases that involve people’s liberty. “The judiciary needs to be proactive. Judges and magistrates need to be mindful of the fact that the persons standing trial before them are human beings like themselves. As such, the judges should not give room for frivolities in the way they handle their matters. Prosecutors who are not ready to prosecute their matters should have them struck out for lack of diligent prosecu¬tion. That way, we will be able to reduce the awaiting trial inmates in the prisons.”
On his part, Mr. Ohi Oyakhere, a lecturer at the Sociology Department of the Univer¬sity of Lagos, blamed the trend on the lack of effective social structures. “You can look at it from three perspectives. For example, if you look at the social structures that we have in Nigeria, which comprises the family, gov¬ernment and religious bodies, you will see that so much remains to be done. They are expected to be the factors that drive human behaviour.
“From the family perspective, yes, the damage has been done and that is why the person is in prison in the first place. When the person gets into prison, the question then is: is the prison really reformatory? Are there instruments put in place to actually reform these people? If there are, have they not been compromised?”
Oyakhere further blamed corruption within the prisons for the worrying trend. “You see, if you go to Nigerian prison, es¬pecially that Kirikiri you are talking about, they have classes of prisoners. There are some that they know that the person com¬mitted a crime, but the parents are able to see prison officials and settle them. When the parents settle the officials, that person gets special attention in the reformatory process. The truth is that the government has not put enough reformatory instru¬ments to help these people.”
It is also his view that religious groups need to do more in their efforts to alleviate the sufferings of prisoners. Oyakhere even accused prison officials of often diverting relief materials donated for the care of prisoners. “I also mentioned religious groups because those are the ones we expect to at least do a holistic work. We are talking about churches and mosques now. You see some people and they say that they have missions into prisons. I happen to be a member of the Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship and we usually have prison visits.
“On one occasion, one of our field rep¬resentatives was telling me that the prison officials collected the relief materials they brought and instead of giving them to the prisoners, they shared them among them¬selves. And they were aware but they did not do anything. That also puts a question mark on the efforts of the religious bodies. They must have felt that the issue was giving the materials out and they have done that. He said they were about leaving when they noticed that the officials had taken up the things they brought. And they did not do anything. If I was there, I would have in¬sisted that things be done right,” the lecturer said.
One major hurdle ex-prisoners face is stigmatization upon their release. Often, finding work after serving a prison term is one of the most difficult things one can think of. Oyakhere has an advice on how best to reintegrate after serving a jail term.
“You can’t rule out the issue of stigmati¬zation. If the person has to go back home, things can no longer be the way they used to be. The best thing to do in that regard is to relocate; he can go and stay with a cousin, uncle, or aunty. But the question is: will they accept him? They have that thing already; they know that society will reject them. Some of them will still summon courage and move on with their lives. But for some oth¬ers, they might want to go back to crime.”
Sometimes, lack of education is also a factor here, he added. “Even the people that work there (the prisons), are they well educated? Are they well paid? If they are not well remunerated, there is no way they will be thinking of reforming those people. In fact, they will be praying that the status quo remains so that they will keep benefiting. If that place is well reformed, they will not see any bribe to collect. They will not see anybody to tell them to put him in a special cell because all the cells are the same.”
However, you would wonder how that affects the real decision makers. Oyakhere said the stance of the prison officials can affect the report they give to the ministry, in this case Ministry of Interior. “It is the report they give that the ministry will act upon. They can say things are okay when they are not just to protect their own interests. The minister may not go to check the place himself. I will be surprised if the Minister of Interior has been to Kirikiri Prisons since the beginning of this year. And that is the major prison in Nigeria. If he has not been there, what recommendations can he make?”
Efforts to get Nigerian Prison Service’s view on the growing trend were rebuffed. Sunday Sun reporter took a trip to the Kirikiri Prisons in Apapa, Lagos, from where she was directed to the prison head¬quarters in the Obalende area of Lagos.
At the prison headquarters, the reporter met with the Public Relations Officer, Biyi Jeje, who insisted he could only grant her an interview when she has produced a request letter from the management of The Sun Publishing Ltd.
The reporter had suggested that he should have requested to see her identity card if he had doubts about her identity; or better still put a call through to her editor to allay his fears. Mr. Jeje refused, insisting on a formal request letter and asking her to return with the letter on a date that was far off from the story deadline.
However, speaking to another Sunday Sun reporter, the National Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Prisons Service, Ope Fatinikun, said the prisons authorities could not be held responsible for the reformation of awaiting trial inmates as they were not compelled by law to participate in training and reformation programmes undertaken by the NPS.
“So long as they are awaiting trial, these inmates have the right to say yes or no to our officers. It is only those who were proper¬ly convicted that can be reformed in our various skill acquisition centers across the country. Inmates now have the opportunity of enrolling in university or secondary while in detention. Majority of those that were convicted and spent time in prison can boast of having learnt something meaningful,” Fatinikun explained.
Source: Sun
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