Reformed former prison inmate and erstwhile drug lord, now Director-General of the Prison Rehabilitation Mission International (PREMI), Bishop Kayode Williams, speaks with SUBAIR MOHAMMED on the ills plaguing Nigeria’s prison system as well as recent controversies involving correctional centres in the country.
One of the reasons for the establishment of correctional facilities is to rehabilitate inmates. Do you think ex-convicts are in the end rehabilitated by the time they are reintegrated into the society?
The correctional service is supposed to reform, rehabilitate, reintegrate and resettle inmates. Unfortunately, there are no ground works. The facilities and structures that would make rehabilitation possible are invisible as of now. We cannot say that inmates and ex-convicts are properly rehabilitated upon the completion of their terms. Some inmates writing examinations through NOUN and WAEC and acquiring certificates is not the motive of correctional institutes. The motive is to train inmates to be responsible citizens, but the correctional services have fallen short of this. If the character of an ex-convict doesn’t change after serving his term, what positive impact would the acquired certificates have on him? There are people everywhere with higher certificates who commit heinous crimes every day. The correctional centres are expected to mould the character and attitude of inmates and give them the opportunity to reconstruct their lives. This is why we are collaborating with countries that have successfully rehabilitated and reformed their inmates.
In Scandinavian countries, many of their prisons have been given out because inmates are coming out and becoming reformed persons. But when certificate is the priority, you are building something on nothing. These people have committed crimes and the first focus should be on, ‘how do we reform them?’ This is the primary objective of prison.
Are you saying that inmates writing WAEC and enrolling for NOUN aren’t part of the rehabilitation process?
That is what I am telling you. The inmates have problems which were responsible for their being in the correctional facilities. The first thing to be done is to solve these problems before any other thing. That peculiar behaviour that warranted their being convicted must be removed. Some of them may not have formal education beyond secondary school level. Given the attitude of youths these days, we are in a big problem in Nigeria. They become more hardened upon the completion of their terms because many of them end up becoming gay or getting into drug and substance abuse.
What can you say about the responses and interventions of the government to curtail drugs and substance abuse by youths, especially prison inmates?
There is no government intervention. Go to the correctional centres and see things for yourself. If you give information that could help save the situation, you will be labelled. What we want to see is a reduction in drug and substance abuse that has become a keg of gunpowder.
How prevalent is drug abuse and dependence among inmates and youths in Lagos?
It’s very bad. It’s extremely bad. Drug abuse in correctional centres is not different from what obtains outside of the facilities. The amount of drug going in and out of prisons is alarming. This is about money. They have people buying and selling it in and outside of the correctional centres. This is not a secret anymore. It is not hidden but, unfortunately, they don’t want people to talk about it. They see correctional centres as secret organisations that nobody should expose. They can’t cry out themselves because so many things are going on there. It is so bad that you cannot reform anybody there. How are they going to do it when the majority of the officers are being used to bring drugs inside for inmates? The officials should have been taught that there should be no trafficking between inmates and the visitors but because the services have no laid-down principles in coordinating visits, such a thing will persist.
There are porosity and recklessness across prisons in Nigeria. Inmates have personal phones. This is not about me exposing happenings within the correctional centres; it is about killing the monster that is threatening our wellness as a country.
Are you saying prison officials sell drugs to inmates?
When you talk about correctional centres, you are talking about places where anything goes. I am sorry for saying this, but I want Nigeria to change. I am 71 years old, and I am bothered. There must be a serious overhaul of our correctional centres.
Can you give statistics of inmates in correctional centres in Lagos?
I am not with the data as we speak but the data are there. I know that the population of prison, male, is larger than female. We have a few female prisons. But most of the female prisons now accommodate male inmates.
What are the different categories of inmates? Are there actually VIP and exotic sections in prisons?
There are different categories of inmates and by their categories, they give them accommodation. There are separate cells for inmates and condemned inmates. There is a separate cell for habitual offenders so that they will not corrupt first offenders because somebody that committed a crime for the first time must be separated from a habitual offender.
There is the instance of the case of Bobrisky. He was a transgender personality who could not be mixed with others. It would cause a commotion if he was allowed to mix freely with other inmates. Men rape in prison, too. There is also special class which you call VIP. Some former governors have tasted prison either as awaiting trial or convicted. So, if they are to be locked up, it is not that they are given a VIP section; they are given an isolated cell which is a single cell. When they are taken there, they are chained. What is called a VIP cell is a cell with beddings and fans built for VIPs. This is done to avoid problems or clash with other inmates.
You’ve been on prison reform advocacy for decades. What progress can you say you have made in bringing the country’s leadership to rehabilitate inmates?
There has been no progress made so far. I wrote a letter to the Minister of Interior, Tunji Ojo. I told him about what I could do and he responded positively. He told me they were fantastic ideas. I am looking forward to having a roundtable with him. What constitutes a danger is that we lack the understanding of how prison operates and should be run and how to rehabilitate prisoners.
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