The story of Bishop Kayode Williams, 66, presiding bishop, Christ Vessels of Grace Church Inc., International and Director General, Prison Rehabilitation Mission International, is a riveting story indeed. The former armed robber-turned cleric who got presidential pardon from former president Olusegun Obasanjo on June 1, 2001, has been passionate about prison reforms. His passion to help the country win the war against crime and criminality got the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). With the recent signing of the Nigerian Correctional Service Bill into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, which changed the name of the Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS) to Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), he feels strongly that a lot of reforms need to be carried out to transform prisons across the country to true correctional centres. He spoke with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf. Excerpts:
MY odyssey in the world of crime
The whole thing happened in Ibadan. I was a very young man who fell into crime due to youthful exuberance. I was in the secondary school at the time when I met this gang. We were on holidays and I was unfortunate to meet Dr. Isola Oyenusi, Babatunde Folorunsho and Lasisi Ajibade a.k.a Dan Blocker, Balewa, who were terrorising the whole of western region at the time. I actually never knew them from anywhere before but they were grownup adults. During my first encounter with them, they asked me to get them a packet of Benson and Hedges cigarette, which was sold for two shillings and six pence. When I returned the packet with the change, they gave me one pound note, which was more than the salary of my school teacher at the time. I refused to collect it but they insisted. There I was, a boy of 17 years, coming into such big money, when my pocket money was just 17 shillings. Unfortunately, I didn’t tell any member of my family I had such money because they would have quizzed me. You know, in those days, parents were very strict and intolerant of such behaviour. The following day, I went there with the money and met them smoking Indian hemp. They were passing it round and when it got to where I sat, I too had a sniff out of fear. Immediately, the chair I was sitting on became uncomfortable for me. I was literally floating in the air, struggling for balance and had to smuggle myself out of their midst. Again, I never disclosed this to any of my family members. But my mum, being a very vigilant person, suspected that something was wrong with me. But the moment she tried to scold me, I just flared up. I was acting under the influence of the illicit drug.
After that episode, I visited the gang again. I saw them washing off blood from their weapons, guns and cutlasses. When they saw me coming, they didn’t attempt to hide the weapons. For a while, I didn’t see them. One day, they called me to help them change some mutilated notes, which had got bad because bullets pierced them when they tried to trip open a safe. I told them not to worry because at that time, we had a banker living in our house. When I brought the notes to him, he changed them and removed part of it and gave me the rest which I took to them. They gave me 10 pounds. Of course, as a young boy, who had come into money, I was just spending without care and soon our Housemaster got to know. He became my mentor and that was the genesis of my involvement in crime. It was a child’s play that turned out to be real big trouble for me.
Trial and sentence
I was not arrested with the rest of the gang. I was arrested for a different robbery case. In those days, trials were not unnecessarily delayed. Oyenusi was tried in Lagos and executed at Bar Beach with Babatunde Folorunsho and some others. Already, before their execution, they had spread their tentacles to different parts of the old Western Region. I worked with people that were trained by the Oyenusi gang. Unlike Oyenusi’s gang that would not go for operations without killing, we were more organised. We often used the banker I gave money to as an informant. He was feeding us with information on companies that would be coming to withdraw money for their workers’ salaries and how we would carry out the operations. But when the bubble burst, he escaped, even though his name was mentioned. The entire gang members were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. I was handed 10 years imprisonment because Justice Olufemi Odunlami, who was the chairman of the tribunal, considered my age.
Prison life
In the prison, it was not easy. Prison is a very bad place. Prison is a breeding ground for hardened criminals. And I have been trying to make sure that the narrative about prison in Nigeria is changed. I am telling you authoritatively and by research, that 85 per cent of the prisoners that we have today are people that have been there before. Our prison system is such that recycles. You release somebody today without shelter, provision for aftercare and resettlement; what do you expect? You don’t expect a man that is almost dead to live without oxygen. You must put back something into their lives. Ex-convicts are supposed to be properly taken care of. During the period of their incarceration, they are always ready to change because that place is not a place of comfort. But the story changes when they come out because nobody cares about them. It is not like that in advanced countries. In our country here, we believe that when a prisoner goes out, he should go and look for his family. But which family will embrace an ex-convict when he returns? Nobody. Oba Adedapo Adewale Tejuosho and I travelled to London; we visited Brison Prison and we were able to study their rehabilitation programmes. There, when a man is in prison, the children and his house rent will be taken care of by the government, such that when he comes out, the issue of accommodation will not be a problem. Then the children, because they are not the ones who committed the crime their father is being held for, will be catered for by the government. Welfare officers from the prison will have to visit them to see how they are doing together with their mother. But here, when somebody is sentenced to 10 years prison term, till he finishes his jail term, nobody knows where he is and nobody cares about his family. And on the day he will be released, there is no record about where he is going. In Britain, they must know the area a prisoner is going to stay and monitor him. But here, nobody cares. During our time, they took fingerprints of prisoners to be discharged and they will inform the state CID, but today who is monitoring convicts?
Passion for prison rehabilitation
After serving my sentence, I was discharged on June 4th, 1980, and naturally felt a certain kind of freedom. But of course, the experience in prison was still very fresh in my mind and I was determined to make the most of it, having gotten a second chance. What prompted me to go into prison rehabilitation was what I witnessed firsthand while in prison. I felt that majority of the prisoners, when they are released, go to the chief warder and say this is my prison uniform. They will starch it, iron it, and ask the warder to take custody of it that they are coming back. And they actually came back. I begin to ask them, why? They said nobody wants to employ them. They’re being stigmatised and all that. As someone who has been in incarceration, I know for a fact that prison life is bad around here. That was one thing I asked Baba Obasanjo to look into when he came in as civilian president in 1999. I told him, and he knows; himself an ex-student of prison (laughs). He was in Jos prison to other prisons. I was in Ibadan, Lagos and Sokoto prisons. In the prison, there is a lot of dehumanisation. Naturally, prison life is supposed to change someone. If you want to go to the toilet in the prison, there are two rooms: one is for urinating and the other is to pass faeces. If you want to pass faeces, you are required to go to the toilet where you will urinate first because you must not urinate into the bucket for faeces, or else you will use your head to carry it for one week as a form of punishment.
The first step I took when I left the prison was to visit Dodan Barracks to look for Alhaji Shehu Shagari who was the President then. I came out on 2nd of June, 1980. But that effort was frustrated. What I needed then was first, accommodation, second, proper rehabilitation. I later looked for people who could assist me and met Chief Afe Babalola. I explained to him that I needed his help, not for myself, but for the generality of people who had been to prisons and those who are still in prison. I told him it was not money I wanted from him; that I had an idea of how we could resolve the problem of crime and help the prisons in Nigeria. I told him the first solution was to address the prison’s 4Rs. He asked me what I meant and I said Reformation must take place in the prison. Rehabilitation must take place immediately after prisoners are released. Re-integration, which is the bridge and then Resettlement, and he agreed to work with me. I later wrote a letter of request to see Baba Obasanjo when he was President in 1999. When I introduced myself that I was from the prison, he welcomed me because he understood my language. I told him about my idea and Obasanjo accepted and pledged to work with me. He also granted me presidential pardon. I enlisted the support of Oba Adedapo. I was looking for people that matter in order to jointly help the nation in tackling the problem of crime.
Everybody supported me when we started, but later we ran into the bottleneck of the Ministry of Interior because it seemed like they didn’t see most of the ideas as viable, or the minister in charge was not disposed towards issues of prisoners. But look at what we are witnessing now in terms of banditry and insurgency. Look at what the government spends in fighting these crimes including militancy. But these are things I can handle. It is not by the power of force. We can get them radicalised. I was a criminal, but God has turned me round to become a useful instrument. I have travelled far and wide and I have been taught by the British. I was in London on several occasions, where I have been taught on prison reforms.
Applause for President Buhari’s prison reform
In the past I wrote letters seeking audience with President Muhammadu Buhari. In fact, there was an invitation given to Oba Adedapo to see the president and I gave him some documents to give to Mr President and it was acknowledged, but I have not been able to sit down with Mr President. I believe President Buhari will understand my language very well when I meet to discuss this issue with him. I’m however happy that the president has taken the first step towards one of the areas I mentioned in some of my several correspondences to him, which is the name change. The recent signing of the Nigerian Correctional Service Bill into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, which changed the name of the Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS) to Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), is a right step in the right direction. This is the vision I have for this country. I have been able to secure the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. During the time of Baba Obasanjo, they wrote him concerning my vision and that was when Obasanjo appointed me as a member of Presidential Committee on Prison Reforms and Rehabilitation. The United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) under the leadership of Paul Sally agreed to pay a counterpart funding of N4 billion while the Nigerian government was to pay N3 billion, which former President Obasanjo approved and asked the then Minister of Finance, Okonjo-Iweala to release. I still have a copy of the letter with me. But because the money was approved towards the tail end of Obasanjo’s administration, it became very difficult to proceed with the programme. Efforts to get successive administrations key into it failed. We are seriously trying now to renew our working relationship with the current Country Representative of UNODC.
But again, it goes beyond just a name change. With the kind of experience I have had, I know for a fact that prison reforms can’t happen overnight. But if there is careful planning, proper management of resources to areas required, it will go a long way. In the past, I was engaged by a foreign government to advice on prisons administration and management. I’m ready to do that for my country because I believe having been given a second chance to live; one way I can plough back to the society is to be useful in any area possible. In Norway, for instance, they have Presidential Adviser on Prison Matters. At the risk of sounding immodest, I know that given my wealth of experience and exposure, I can adequately fit into that role. I’m ready to serve my country in whatever capacity so required, so long as this will help to change things positively for our country. Our prisons are in dire need of reforms. The facilities are dilapidated and congested.
Currently, we have 240 prisons out of which 155 are prisons for convicts and 83 are satellite facilities. For instance, as at August 2018, the Port Harcourt prison built in 1918 and designed to shelter 800 inmates now accommodates 5,000, while Kirikiri Maximum prison in Lagos built to hold 956 inmates has become home to 2,600 inmates. Available statistics within the same period also indicated that out of the total population of 71,443 inmates nationwide, awaiting trial inmates stood at 48,702. Among these were people who had been behind bars for a longer time than they would have served if they had been sentenced. The truth is how prepared are the personnel of the Service to drive the correctional project to fullness? Is the government willing to re-train the officials of the Service so that their behaviours and attitudes towards inmates would blend with the aims of the institution as outlined in the new law? These are causes for concern.
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