Agenda Papers Editorial: Bursting the stinking tale of Nigerian prisons: The shameful Bobrisky expose

Nigerian was in the news again last week for the wrong reasons and it was the tale of notorious cross dresser Idris Okuneye otherwise known as Bobrisky concerning his ordeal in the six months jail term.

Earlier this year Bobrisky ran into troubled water with the anti corruption agency, EFCC on charges of naira abuse and money laundering and subsequently arrested and prosecuted.

With an expedited court trial he was sent to six months imprisonment with no option of fine.

Nigerians have expected that after months in prison Bobrisky will come out of prison disheveled, tattered with bushy hair and clustered unshaven beards but what did they see, a clean shaven, robust and full of life man that looked like he never saw the four walls of the prison.

Also a few hours after he was out of prison he was off to the beach partying all over Lagos with pictorial and video evidence to show for it. This unusual behavior of recently released prisoner made many people to think and ask questions about the kind of confinement he went into with many wishing that they don’t mind going to that kind of jail.

But just last week details of what transpired between Bobrisky, EFCC and Nigerian prison officials started coming out. A leaked phone conversation between Bobrisky and somebody showed that he paid the sum of N15 million to procure himself a luxury apartment to serve as his prison room. This probably accounted for the good looks Nigerians observed when he served out his prison term.

To show how serious the matter is the federal government through the ministry of internal affairs has suspended some high ranking prison officers showing how damning the matter is and that it is not just a mere rumour or social media bluff.

As we probe further on this, many dirty and unethical things are emerging showing the rottenness of the Nigerian prison.

It’s not that Nigerians don’t know that a lot of rot has been going on in Nigerian prisons.

Stories abound where prison authorities come out with a daily feeding budget for each prisoner to be over N1500 but the same prisoners will not have food of up to N300 a day. Nigerians hear and see stories of bags of rice, beans,gari and other food stuff meant for prisoners developing wings and flying off without being cooked and served to the prison inmates.

Year in year out we see huge budgetary allocations to the correctional service department yet prisoners and Nigerians don’t seem to know where the money goes as the world is inundated with ugly stories of the decadence in the prison.

Also there are stories that some individuals sent to prisons don’t actually pass through the correctional aspect of the imprisonment but find succour in pre-arranged choice luxury apartments they stay till the end of their prison term.

Just recently on a national television human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) revealed that around 2005 about 197 hard drug peddlers convicted never served their prison rather they all escaped. According to the shocking revelation one of those convicted returned back to the drug trade.

With the embarrassment that this Bobrisky matter has thrown up both locally and internationally it is our view that the authorities will use the expose to sanitize the Nigerian correctional sector and ensure that this kind of thing does not happen again.

What Nigerians will not want is for this matter to be swept under the carpet like the majority of the issues that crop up in our political space. It has been the tradition that very serious issues will crop up, dominate discussions and heat up the polity only for the issue to just fizzle out in just a few days or weeks without a justifiable conclusion to the issue.

Everything humanly possible should be done to use this opportunity to sanitize the correctional service sector.

Efforts should be made to not only bring to book of all those fingered in this national disgrace but the report of the findings should be made public for all to see.

Starting with the EFCC officials, Police, prison officials and any other persons involved in the scandal they must all be brought to book to serve as a deterrent.

Also government should use this opportunity to reform the prisons to make it actually a proper correctional centre just like what we have in saner climes.

By so doing the government would have redeemed its image and our prison would be better for it .