Not just a statistic

By Ruona Agbroko
Sunday, 14 February 2010 21:08

The only reason I had some recollection of the Wits journalism department’s Justice Project flier was because a sexy looking boy (who I now discover is an unrepentant snob) had one in his hand on orientation day. But all that changed on the afternoon of February 2.


Today I know that “a third of the South African prison population is locked up awaiting trial, many for years. Yet approximately 2 in 5 of these people will eventually be acquitted.”

I know that this—not advertising rhetoric—is the reason Wits law and journalism students work under The Justice Project to investigate cases of people held in prison without trial and those wrongly convicted.

Today I know that these are not just statistics; the realities of human lives make up these numbers.

Why do I know all of this, now? Because a prisoner called me.

Part of the stipulations of my scholarship is that I put in some hours at the department’s administrative office. No day is ever the same, but all are enjoyable, mainly because I have a funky boss I shall call J.


So that Tuesday, I was in the office, trying to study. I however spent more time tolerating irritating calls from students who were somewhat allergic to checking the website or notice boards for where and when their own classes would hold.

And so, after a female trying to sound like Barry White had called in with her allergy, the telephone rang again even before I could make contact with my seat. I almost didn’t take that call.

“Hello, Wits Journalism...” I said, after the brief battle for my soul had been won by Professionalism.

This person continued breathing heavily.

I waited, in case the connection was afflicted by that scientific phenomenon where you speak and have to go to the grocers and back before the person on the other end hears what you have said.


Sure enough, he replied.

“Please I am calling from the prison.”


I almost dropped the receiver.


“How may I help you sir?” I managed to say.

“I believe I am on to the Justice Project... please I need the postal address to your department.”


I told him I had no idea, I was just an office assistant and...

He cut me off in mid-sentence.

“Please, understand I am calling from a prison. I do not know if I will have this opportunity again... Do you understand?”

I told him yes. Because I did.

My mother has worked with the Nigerian Prisons Service for over 30 years. I have visited the various prisons in the country where she worked as her child and only go now as a journalist, undercover, without her knowledge.


The conditions have improved, but they are still far from acceptable. The figures are as dismal as South Africa’s; government officials in 2009 said of 47,815 inmates unevenly spread across Nigeria’s 227 prisons, 80 percent await trial.



There are children living with prisoner-mothers, men detained for between five and ten years, sometimes more. Occasional aid during prison terms and rehabilitation after release are often the responsibility of religious and humanitarian organizations.



Local newspaper reports in Nigeria quote authorities as saying these organizations have helped reduce prisoner death rates to about 89 from 1,500 every year. Inside, there are no phones, and certainly no Justice Project-like initiative that I know of.



Investigating a story about preferential treatment for celebrity prisoners in December 2009, the spokesperson for all prisons in Nigeria’s Lagos State barked at us; “I have 4,500 inmates here; 80 per cent of who are awaiting trials, we are not happy with that. Instead of focusing on one person, let us talk about how we can decongest the prison.”


But because I know first-hand that focusing on one person instead of allowing all prisoners suffer injustice under the tag “criminals” makes the difference to penal systems, I used my free arm to make a mess of the office until I was reading out a postal address from some official letter to that faceless prisoner.


I hope he gets his day in court.


*Agbroko is the 2010 Niall Fitzgerald scholar doing her Honours degree in Journalism and Media Studies at the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits), Johanneburg, South Africa. She writes this column for www.vuvuzela.org.za, the website for Wits' journalism department.

***PHOTO CREDIT: policelink.monster.com