Posted by By AKEEB ALARAPE, Ibadan on
Those who saw Mrs. Maureen Omeili, Oyo State Comptroller of Prisons, on Tuesday, September 11, could not but agree that she was not in her best form. Ditto her staff. They were evidently in shock. The had just been rattled by those under their care and surveillance.
Those who saw Mrs. Maureen Omeili, Oyo State Comptroller of Prisons, on Tuesday, September 11, could not but agree that she was not in her best form. Ditto her staff. They were evidently in shock. The had just been rattled by those under their care and surveillance.
Inmates at the Agodi Minimum Security Prison, Ibadan, over whom she superintends, had just vented out their anger in a rather violent manner, protesting the poor health services of the confinement. The revolt was reportedly led by one Sonponna (Small Pox), a notorious armed robbery suspect.
In the process, properties were vandalized; prisons officials allegedly manhandled while police personnel, reinforced to the place to restore order mowed down 11 of the protesting prisoners. About 22 others also sustained gunshot injuries.
The impact of the encounter was immediate on the business district of Agodi/Gate area, where the prison is located. The usually busy nature of the area was instantly surplanted with a hostile atmosphere.
An Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) vehicle was stationed directly opposite the entrance to the prison yard and a section of the dual carriage road that leads to the prison from the centre of the city was condoned off by stern-looking prison officials, from the Oke-Adu junction to the entry point.
Commercial activities at Ajibade Shopping Centre, a shopping complex that shields the prison yard from public glare, reduced to the lowest ebb.
Traders from the Agodi/Gate Iron market, adjacent the prison yard, and those from motor garages around area, formed cluster groups along the fence of the Minimum Security Prison, watching the drama from afar.
Initially, journalists were denied entry before the intervention of the Comptroller herself. But not after one newsman, Mr. Tope Abiola of the Nigerian Tribune had been attacked.
His offence was daring to inform his editor of his findings concerning the genesis of the revolt, and the casualty figure.
Although the prison comptroller and her staff described the revolt as attempted jailbreak, findings after the incident revealed that there were more to it than the prison authorities would want the public to believe.
Omeili had said that the prisoners' protest was not unconnected with the impression that one of them who was sick a day earlier had given up the ghost.
'One of the inmates was sick over the weekend and was taken to hospital. The inmates probably thought he was dead and they started rioting. Meanwhile the inmate is alive. He is very much alive now and responding to treatment," she had said Tuesday.
A day after the incident, an Ibadan-based lawyer, Olawale Ojoge Daniel, had faulted the Comptroller's claims, describing it as 'callous, mischievous, silly and irresponsible."
Displaying the death certificate of an inmate - Ladi Adeoke - once on the awaiting trial list having been remanded on holden charge since October 2006, over alleged armed robbery, Daniel said that Ladi died mysteriously around 4p.m Saturday, shortly after he received some guests.
The attorney disclosed that he, along with some prison officials and family members of the deceased took delivery of the corpse on Sunday night after it had been kept somewhere outside the prison cell with cotton wool stuffed in its mouth and nostrils.
Thus, Daniel had sued the comptroller for criminal negligence over the death of the inmate, who he said died as a result of inadequate medical facilities in the prison.
Contacted, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the prison, Mr. Shaddrack Ogundahunsi, was evasive in his response. He said the Comptroller - who claimed that no inmate died before the outbreak of the riot - was actually in Abuja when the incident happened and was yet to be briefed on the matter.
Asked about the claim that the prison has no competent medical doctor to attend to the inmates, Ogundahunsi said it was not true. Yet, he could not give the name of the prison's doctor.
The attorney also alleged the shaddy deal by cops assigned to the trial of suspects. He said they were in the habit of arraigning robbery suspects before court of lower jurisdiction and inadvertently leading to congestion of prison.
Agodi prison was built to accommodate 200 inmates, was later expanded to house 500. But at the time of the revolt, the prison had 680 inmates out of which 63 were already convicted. Others were on awaiting trial list.