November 25, 2009
If it is true that Olabode George, a convict presently holed up in prison, had refused to adorn prison uniform assigned to him by authorities of the Kirikiri Prisons of the Nigerian Prisons Service, then we have another confirmation of the existence and application of the rule: the mighty ones are above the law in Nigeria.
Not that we needed a confirmation of sort to believe that the mighty can, indeed, be above the law in our dear country, Nigeria. But how come a convict still defiles the law even within prison walls? Was it not because of his infraction of the law of the land that he landed in prison? Are we sure the prison can actually make this leopard change its spots?
What is it about our criminal justice system that emboldens a prisoner while within prison walls and thrusts him/her back unto the society hardened than he/she had gone in?
I must inform that I haven’t been to any prisons in life, and I shall not; except my professional calling - law- takes me there to meet with a client. But I have heard third person accounts of life in prisons in Nigeria: the poor choleric meals, dirty cells, unkempt environs, physical and emotional abuses, the constant transmission of diseases by inmates to others etc.
In same vein, I have also heard of high flyers that, while doing time in prison, lived larger than life. Wasn’t the media filled with stories of Fred Ajudua, Ade Bendel, and Senator Omisore etc throwing parties, having wardens on their payroll, and using power generators to generate their electricity all while imprisoned for violating the laws of the land?
Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that, depending on your background, social status and link to high places, the choice as to the means to meet your wants and needs are indeed available to you as a prisoner in Nigeria. So, it isn’t surprising to me that Olabode George receives bands of visitors, eats what he prefers and still wears his Guinea brocade, expensive ankara, and Swiss lace while in Kirikiri.
Certainly, choices and penitentiary are not a symbiotic pair; except in Nigeria.
The very idea of the imposition of prison terms is to deter the convict and members of the society who might want to tow the line of the guilty. In fact, serving term in prison is meant to reform the prisoner; but not in Nigeria.
A prisoner can not refuse to wear prison uniform if indeed the law applies and that prisoner submits to authorities. Violation of a nation’s laws attracts, once proved in the courts, commensurate prison terms and/or fines as the case may be. A prisoner should know that his rights are lawfully curtailed while in prison. Thus he associates no more with whom he likes; eats when given, sleeps when told and wears what he’s given. Denial is the operating word.
The denial of choice (read: freedom) therefore distinguishes the occupant of a prison cell in Kirikiri, Alagbon etc from that of a mansion in Ikoyi, Ikeja or Victoria Island. A jailed criminal, for that is who a prisoner is, has no choice at all. Even a beggar might choose ahead of a prisoner, if it ever comes to that.
In the wake of the revelation that Mr. George won’t wear prison uniform, frequently receives visitors and eats home-cooked food, one queries the sufficiency of two years and four months as his punishment for stealing seventy billion naira and for defying lawful order. Of course I understand that he had been convicted pursuant to the EFCC Act, and that that Act stipulates what punishment can be melted out.
But that, while now in prison, he still gets to live like the ‘PDP area father’ that he was as a free man baffles me and more so implicates the Nigerian criminal justice system.
Shouldn’t I too be put in a position to pilfer seventy billion naira, live large for awhile and then sentenced to two years and four months in prison with all the luxury my seventy billion naira can afford me?
There wasn’t even any reference to restitution in the Justice Oyewole judgment! Given the spate of the equivalent of a “pat in the back’ punishment being given to convicted corrupt Nigerian politicians, are we not supposed to be more interested in retrieving the stolen billions than putting felons like Olabode George where they truly belongs- jail? EFCC, where is the stolen money for which you spent millions of public fund to hire Festus Keyamo?
If the government is truly bent on stamping out corruption and governing by the rule of law, Olabode George and his likes shouldn’t be having it easy, whether imprisoned or walking the face of the earth freely.
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