Another superb memoirs anchored on prison
experience by an African...
Of course it is sickening to see refined minds (their corporeal bodies of course!) clamped in jail. Wole Soyinka's The Man Died (prison notes) is an everlasting visceral educational publication. Other literary gurus like Awoonor and Ngugi have also recreated their terrible times in incarceration.
Terrible? We can imagine the basics. Loss of freedom... restricted stringently to a certain soul debasing place. No loved ones, families to lift one's spirits, unedifying unwholesome meals. No walks, no friends or even lovers to call on, horrific loneliness without the things one ordinarily takes for granted
And those tortured
in the process? The mind boggles.
And the "auxiliaries" of such restrictions: Mosquitoes, fleas, bugs, lice unlimited as debilitating insects have a field day. Rodents revelling in the nighttime...and probably during the days too. Trepidation always. Maybe chains and manacles too...
Ajibade's account of course shows that sensitive intellectual minds probably suffer most. Jailed for life - whilst being innocent. Macabre justice and scenario. Not that the shameless "gaolers" including those involved in the pertinent "trial" and verdict did not know better. They are just pawns in the hands of the Tyrant/Dictator- Sani Abacha one of the worst "leaders" in African history....
A harrowing account...two short excerpts here: "When Mayowa (the author's 2 year old son) was eventually brought to meet me for less than 5 minutes, the boy could not recognise me. Apart from my thick beard which I was not wearing at home, pimples had already taken complete possession of my face..."
“Makurdi Prison stank. It stank of rotten flesh, of excrement, of rat urine. It stank of many mouths unwashed for many days. It stank of corruption as well"
A hair-raising, eclectic work.
- O (Eric) Bolaji
