Love thy prisoners

Do you believe one can become a prisoner today and a president tomorrow? It may sound impossible to many but this has already happened in the world and on the African continent. We should all change our attitude towards prisoners and treat them as normal human beings not as beasts.

In Africa we have witnessed prominent leaders serve years in prison and later come out and become presidents. The former and the first president of South Africa Nelson Mandela served a term from the early sixties to the early 90’s. In Kenya we have witnessed our own first president the late Jomo Kenyatta serve a prison term and later after we gained our independence he became the first president.

In Kenya there was once a minister for home affairs who made very harsh rules for prisoners. He denied them beds, blankets and other basic needs. In a turn of events the same minister was implicated in matters warranting him to be in prison. Finding that there were no beds and blankets he demanded these things from the store. He was reminded of the orders he had made. It was such a shame for a fat man like him suffering from high blood pressure and gout.

During the social day at the industrial area prison in Nairobi which was held on the 30th of October the Kenya Human Rights Commission chairman Maina Kiai commended the government for the reform exercises that are taking part in most of the prisons in the country. He noted that: “There is a library in the prison which is a step forward to the inmates but in the library their are no books that deal with human rights.”

A university student who is an inmate at the prison acted as the spokesperson of the inmates at the prison. He thanked the government for the reforming works that it had started in the prisons but he requested them to reduce the congestion in the prisons.

Their were shouts as the officer in charge tried to cut short the speech although the vice-president intervened and asked him to finish his speech. He continued by asking the Minister for Justice and Constitutional affairs Kiraitu Murungi and the Chief Justice Evans Gicheru to pay them a visit since they had issues they wanted to tell him.

The vice-president Hon. Moody Awori who was at the event to officially open a hall for the inmates received cheers as he stood up to present his speech. The inmates, who referred to the vice-president as ‘uncle’, stood up to listen to what he had to tell them. The vice-president thanked the non-governmental organizations that had offered material support to the prisons and said that their was a move to start the training of warders to reduce the cases of inmates being assaulted by the warders. He added that the education program in the prisons would go on uninterrupted.