Accounts from the jails, by Jamila Mohammed Kolo (2)

Accounts from the jails, by Jamila Mohammed Kolo (2)

The prisons in Asia are notorious for their horrific states. They are said to be some of the most dangerous in the world.

Africans, especially Nigerians are found incarcerated in almost every country in the world.

My interest in the condition of African prisoners in the diaspora stemmed from my accidental involvement in a case concerning a student who was wrongfully jailed in Malaysia. The young chap (called Abba) happened to be a friend and classmate of my son in a university town called Mantin in the province of Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia.

As one of the few Nigerian elders living in Malaysia at that time, I was approached to assist in the case. I visited Abba, a couple of times while he was in jail before we were able to secure his release with the aid of the Nigerian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. In the words of Abba (the prisoner), his experience was like he had ‘gone to hell and back!’

I remember the day he was released. He said to me, ‘Anty what can we do to bring the attention of the Nigerian government to the plights of some Nigerian nationals who have been here for donkey years and no one has ever come to see them much less talk about reviewing their cases?’

He said that a lot of them are innocent like me. But because nobody came for them, they would be incarcerated until some relatives or our government turns up to pick up their case.

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I remember that on one of the visits I paid him on a visiting day, he pointed out a guy to me who looked like a walking skeleton and told me that the boy had been discharged but because nobody came for him, he had remained in the ‘transit camp” for years.

He said that the boy once lamented to him that he was afraid that he might die there, because none of his people knew he was in jail, that they thought he was in school!

Malaysians do not like Nigerians. Other African nationals received much better treatment than Nigerians. For a variety of reasons, Nigerians have managed to put our country on top of the list of the most hated foreigners living in Malaysia. All Nigerians are automatically “guilty until proven innocent“!

You can imagine what sorts of treatment were meted out to Nigerians in prisons across Malaysia. A very horrible case that remains indelible in my mind was the case of a Nigerian lady who was arrested at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on drug-related charges. She was used as a mule by her boyfriend. After her arrest, the boyfriend abandoned her and her unborn child. Yep, she was pregnant!

She was sentenced to death! She was allowed about two years to give birth to her child and nurture it to a stage where it can be given out for adoption.

I remember vividly the images of this young woman being led to the gallows.

She screamed, kicked and begged to be spared, but to no avail. We watched in stunned silence as this beautiful young lady was stripped of her few belongings and was led to her death.

For months to come, I found it difficult to shake off the horrendous pictures from my mind. Many Nigerians met their Waterloo in Malaysian prisons, mostly on charges of drug trafficking.

I think Nigerian youths have to rethink their obsession with the ‘japa’ syndrome. It seems like our country has lost all its appeal to the youth. But what most of them found out the hard way, is that the ‘grass is not always greener on the other side’.

Most of our citizens go to these countries unprepared and misinformed, therefore they found themselves on the wrong side of the law. I wonder if the money you can accumulate abroad is worth the years you waste in jail.

Among the interesting cases I encountered in Malaysian prisons is the case of two Nigerians who were jailed for life for stealing an Automated Teller Machine! Yep, you heard me right! They uprooted an ATM in a small university town called Nilai. They took the machine home with the hope of eventually breaking it open to access the money within. Unfortunately, they forgot one tiny but important detail – the CCTV!

They worked on the machine in the comfort of their condo apartment, for days. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, the police were looking for them, in the typical Malay way, silently! While they thought they had gotten away with the “heist of the year”, the Malaysian police had zeroed their search on all male black Africans of a certain physical description! Of course, these two young dudes were also under the search radar!

One fateful day, one of them was on a grocery shopping errand when he was apprehended by the police. As the saying goes, there is no honour among thieves, so he exposed the identity of his partner in crime.

It was the first crime of its kind to happen in the criminal history of Malaysia, so it was hot news that went quickly viral across the country. We all watched the news of the incident on TV.

So you can imagine my surprise and fascination when I came face to face with these infamous dudes, on a court hearing day for a friend’s son who had the same lawyer with them. I got the full gist of the story from the lawyer.

_Hajiya Jamila Kolo is a caterer based in Abuja._