His road to the Ivory Tower was strewn with thorns. A young robber condemned to death, Olukayode Dada obtained mercy through amnesty, and decided to live right. But that was when the real battle started. He faces stigmatisation and rejection everywhere, even among family members and friends. He stayed almost a decade before he could get a job, lecturing at one of the nation’s foremost private universities. Government could make the prison more reformatory. Maybe his story can jumpstart that process, writes ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE.
oday, he stands on the threshold of history. With few months to the defence of his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) thesis in Physiology, Kayode Dada is self-made. He has not only burnt the proverbial midnight candle at both ends to get to this stage.
He carries a yoke the society is not making any lighter. His frail frame tells a sea of sad stories. Dada, despite his towering academic accomplishments, battle stigmatisation everywhere he turns. In spite of the glitz of his academic prowess, Dada, in the eye of the society, remains an ex-convict.
That tag remained sewn to his name. Tired of fighting it any further, he had resigned to fate. Even as he shared the testimony of his life’s journey, he couldn’t hold back the tears–mixture of agony, pain and joy.
At a service organised by Bishop Kayode Williams, also an ex-convict, to celebrate God’s saving grace and miraculous healing from a demonic attack wrought on him during a crusade at New Gbagi Market in Ibadan, at the Oba Tejuoso Assembly of the Christ Vessel of Grace Church International, Old Oko-Oba, Lagos, Dada gave a graphic illustration of a life sprouting from the nadir.
Dada started out in life as a straight young man. “I have a very decent upbringing, and my parents are deeply religious of the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) stock, I am also a dedicated chorister,” he said.
Yet, when he slipped, due to peer pressure, it was fatal. “I joined a bad gang, and I was lured into a robbery operation, around Agbado, a border town in Ogun State. I was the only one caught by the police and I was convicted and sentenced to death. At the prison, I rededicate myself, having known that I am just waiting for the hangman.
He embraced the evangelism brought by the Prison Rehabilitation and Evangelical Ministry International (PREMI), a prison organisation founded by an ex-convict Pastor, now Bishop Kayode Williams.
“My changed way of life must have attracted the prison authorities and after four years on the condemned cell, I was granted freedom. That was in 2003.”
In 2002, Dada sat for JAMB from prison, and passed. Then the first post-prison battle started. Authorities of the University of Lagos would have nothing to do with an ex-convict. But the then Pro-Chancellor, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), would have none of it. More so as he was on PREMI’s Board. He got his admission, though not in Medicine his first choice, but Physiology.
Throughout the four years, Dada recalled the school authorities, unknown to him, policed him. Shorn of friends as no one wanted to have anything to do with him, he found solace in his books and the lab was his favourite reading spot.
Few weeks to his final year, one of those policing him approached him and confessed that he had been tried and tested and he was given a clean bill of health. He graduated with a very strong second-class Upper Division.
The stigmatisation followed him to the camp of the National Youths Service Corps, which, again, he would have lost but for Bishop Williams’ and Babalola’s intervention. He recalled how he was denied a teaching job at a crèche after his service, due to his status, and even when he volunteered as a laboratory hand he found his movements were usually monitored.
The frustration resulted in his enrolling for a Master’s of Science (M.Sc) degree in Physiology, which he completed in 2012. A feat that might have been a mirage without the financial support of philanthropists such as Mrs Nosa Igiebor, wife of publisher of TELL Magazine, Oba Tejuoso and Bishop Williams, among others.
“One day, I was in the laboratory at UNILAG when I received a phone call to come for an interview at Babcock University. I never applied to that university. I was jittery. I told Oba Adedapo Tejuosho and Bishop Williams both of who told me to attend the interview.
“I was happy when no reference was made in the forms we all filled. However, during the second leg of the interview, when another form was shared and we were asked to state if we had been convicted before, I lost all hope. Moreso, when Bishop Williams asked me not to lie about my state.
“Interestingly, the form was brushed aside and I eventually got the job. Last year, I became not only a Senior Lecturer, but also the overall best lecturer in the entire Babcock University, an unexpected award of excellence most celebrated by the school authority,” Dada said.
He said the university has made his burden a little lighter. Students now freely come to him for counselling and the school now rely on him on disciplinary matters.
“The journey to this path has been tortuous but the reward has been worth all the sowing,” he said.
On what could be done for things to be better for ex-convicts, Dada said: “The society should stop demonising any convict. The prison is a reformatory home and society should stop seeing it as a condemnatory one. Anyone who goes into prison either becomes broken-hearted or hardened and the society could make it better if we all show some understanding.
“The society has already concluded and foreclosed the future for ex-convicts. They cannot get love. Everywhere they turn, they see hatred. They are condemned for their sins, even where they might have been innocently convicted.
“They can never get a decent home or clothes. They cannot walk freely in the community, get a job, marry or raise a family. They are condemned to a life of solitude. They are ostracised by the society that ought to look forward to their full rehabilitation. Without the right support, ex-convicts become hardened and commit another crime in order to return to prison, where he could find love and solace.”
He said he was becoming a good story because he had benevolent giants willing to offer him their shoulders. I may not have turned out to be this if not for God and these people who have taken it upon themselves to break the stereotypes and rise above stigma.
He recalled he usually fancied Pastor Williams (as he then was) preach at crusades around Agbado, where he grew up, never knowing that their path would “interwove beyond the ordinary.”
“Once during service in our church, I had prayed that I wanted to be like this man (Williams). And looking back right now, I nearly did, though I became a robber, killed, arrested and condemned to death before I was rescued and given another life. I became the Elisha while Bishop Williams is the Elijah,” he said.
