Personally I find it difficult to write a lengthy post after three or more weeks of compressing my thoughts into a hundred and forty letters (for those who do not know, I’m talking about twitter here.) Although having to write a lengthy post is somewhat freedom for me after weeks of being constrained to write all my sense in 140 words, it’s a freedom I find hard to use. Maybe the men of old were right when they said, “brevity is the soul of wits”. Anything can be said with 140 words.
Before I go on, I want to use this opportunity to extend my heartfelt gratitude to whoever has had the duty of providing electricity to the Aka Obot Idim axis of Uyo. May your sons never do drugs.
It’s not every day that you get the chance to worship at the Prisons Chapel with the inmates. I had the opportunity of visiting the federal prisons in Uyo last weekend, and to worship at the prisons chapel. The bulk of my post is just some random musings from what I saw. A prison is not a prison because of the many bars and locks, if it were so, we would have called the wardens who also go behind these bars, prisoners; it doesn’t consist of the courtyard, if not we would have termed everyone within the confines of the prison yard as prisoners; a prison is that limitation, that feeling, the knowledge that unlike every other man, you are not entitled to breathe the air you desire. It may be possible for a man to spend a whole year locked in his house, but the house is not a prison so far as he knows that at any point in time, he can take a stroll to the bush-meat joint at the corner of the street if his finances enable him, to unwind.
While I was finding my way to the chapel in the company of my mum, I noticed some of the cells were open and some of the inmates were playing around the courtyard. I’ve often heard stories of cell chiefs; guys, who by dint of fighting and age, have risen to the enviable position of the lords of the manor. To these cell chiefs every new comer must pay obeisance upon being admitted into the cell. My brother once told me of a friend of his who tried to fly in the face of this ancient custom. It took a well delivered slap to teach him the doctrine of stare decisis. So when I was finding my way through the uneven grounds, I tried to use my eyes to pick out possible chiefs among the football players and those that were loafing about, word on the street has it that these chiefs are always well built and tough looking, often lacking one or two parts of the body; if not an eye, then a finger would be missing. I was unsuccessful in my search. The people I saw were too young to lead a cell, and then some others were too loud and noisy. A cell capone should be a quiet devil, or so I think.
The faces I saw in the courtyard betrayed no feelings. It’s a different world out there, they’re sad, but they’ve come to terms with it. Some even managed to smile at me, and I smiled back and waved to a few. It’s hard to imagine at what price these sold their freedom. Maybe for a moment of anger, a moment of greed, it could have been anything, it may have been nothing. I’m well aware that some people have been hounded off to prison without deserving to be so treated. I know the police sometimes fall into the temptation of blanket arrests, carrying all the young men at the scene of a crime, both the guilty and the guiltless. An example is that of many of the 44 students arrested by the police in connection with the June 12 Uniuyo riots. Boys arrested from their hostels, many of whom had no hand in the riots. Maybe some of those faces were brought there on such accounts.
A prison is one place where you can guess one thing that is on every inmate’s mind – freedom. But out here among the free people, we take our freedom for granted. You take the fact that you can afford to take a walk to the next street without being apprehended (except you stay in Calabar-South, in which case your walking hours are restricted by ndito ino) for granted, so you do the things you do. Things will get real when you feel the cold iron of the hand cuffs on your wrists and the slamming of the prison gates. If you want to stay out of jail, then you’ll have to make a jail for yourself. Ask, how much am I willing to pay for my freedom? On my way to the chapel, I heard an inmate call out my name from the locked cells. He called me about three times, I tried to make out his face from the sea of faces that were watching me from the cell windows, I could not. I wish I knew who he was, and why he was there.
The prisoners are as human as we all are, they sang to God with such gusto as was lacking in the chapels of free men. I was touched by the simplicity with which they received God’s word. Maybe it was because their options were few, or because life in prison had taught them how to place things in perspective, I cannot claim to know, but I know right there in the chapel, they were all simple men and women, thanking God for life and hoping for the best. The ex-cons need love and support. Do not fail to welcome them back when they have served their term. We all make mistakes.
Other Matters
ASUU
Many a Nigerian has complained about the decision of the FG to pay the striking lecturers for the months they went on strike. I have a solution to this. The legislature should enact a law to the effect that striking workers can only be paid if the strike was in order to force the employer to implement an agreement previously entered into, or to implement the terms of their contract of employment, or to do an act which they had been required to carry out by a court order. The salaries in all other strikes should be deemed as a sacrifice made by the workers in the pursuit of their interests.
Harmattan
It annoys me that while those who have various jobs to keep up with are complaining of the cold and the fact that it would be impossible to bath with cold water in the early hours of the day, the jobless students who have nowhere to go will also lend their voices to the cry of these other gentlemen. Please if you have nowhere to go, do not bother taking your bath in the morning, wait till the sun is up, then you will not need to boil water to take your bath. Let us have peace on the social networks. If you have some place going, you’ve probably heard of rub and shine……
