REPORTER’S DIARY: Living With A ‘Mad’ Cell Mate, Set Up By Warders, Abducted By The Police (3)

In the third and final part of a three – part undercover investigative series, FISAYO SOYOMBO documents the soft side of his time in police cell and prison, and how prison, police and court officials conspired to abduct him after his cover was blown.

I hadn’t yet spent a full day at Pedro Police Station, Shomolu, Lagos, when I asked myself the question: “Who sent me?” But it was nothing new; I knew I would ask myself that question at some point during this investigation, and I knew too that it wouldn’t make me call it off. If you asked any hardcore investigative journalist, they would say the same of almost every daredevil story they have covered.

As I lay in that warm cell in the wee small hours of Tuesday July 9, it dawned on me that surviving the days ahead would require more than brawn. Five of us ‘suspects’ had crammed ourselves into that narrow, filthy cell, all wanting to get our bodies on that small mat but none fully succeeding. So, intermittently, one suspect pushed or snuggled into the other. The four of them were in deep sleep but I lay there wide awake. How could I sleep? To my immediate left was Uchenna, whose snores could dwarf the grunt of an elephant; and on my other side Austin, coughing so laboriously as though his heart was about to be flung out through his mouth, and in a manner predisposing cell mates to air-borne infections. The air was reeking of alcohol, too.

Back in the evening, one suspect had tipped a policewoman to help him buy two sachets of gin that he didn’t down until just before midnight. I looked at the cell gate again and it was firmly padlocked. There was no escaping; this would be my home for a few more days.

MY CELL MATE ‘RUNS MAD’
Two of the next three days proved tumultuous, even for the police officers.

It started over the night between Wednesday and Thursday, at about 1am. Three of us were in the entire cell, but only Uchenna and I shared the inner cell. Suddenly, he hit me in my deep sleep and asked me to look at a hole in one of the walls of the cell. “There’s an eagle in that place,” he howled, spilling a sachet of water in that direction. “Can you see it? That’s the eagle!”

It marked the onset of a two-day turbulence in the cell. Uchenna sprang up and began sprinkling water in all three rooms of the cell, casting and binding, shouting and crying out prayers. “Jesus is here, Jesus is here,” he screamed at a time. “Leave this place, you demon! No space for you here. I am no longer with you. I’m a new man now. Jesus is here!”

Uchenna went on somewhat schizophrenically for the next six to seven hours, punctuated only once by the arrival of Sunday and Japheth in the cell. The police officers ignored him altogether, but we, the suspects, were worried; we weren’t sure if he had run mad or if he was pretending, to force an unlikely release. By Thursday, it had become so unbearable the officers had to handcuff his left hand to the gate of an inner cell. It was a big shock to find out he had disentangled himself in a matter of minutes. He was re-cuffed but he again freed himself; this time, I caught him. He had signaled to Japheth to help him fetch a sachet of water; with this, he greased his hand and the handcuff, and boom, he was free again.

This time, the officers removed him from the cell gate and chained him in the inner cell proper, alongside his helper Japheth who was first blessed with a few smacks. Still, it didn’t deter Uchenna; it emboldened him to tacitly pray for the death of the officers, over the night.

“Kill them all. Fire, burn you. In the name of Jesus. Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fireeeeeeeeeeee,” he yelled at one time. “Jesus is here. I need the fire from heaven, the fire from heaven, the fire from heaven. Jesus, release it on me now. You did not disappoint Elisha, Elijah… I need your fire now to quench and destroy all the people tormenting me. Die in the name of Jesus! You die! Dieeeeeeeee!!!”

Japheth, on the other hand, was having a torrid time. The inner cell in which they were caged was mosquito-infested, due in part to the volume of water Uchenna had moistened it with. Even when he wasn’t caged, I’d furtively observed how Japheth frequently scratched his crotch region with great discomfort, sometimes even peeping into his dingy briefs to catch a glimpse of what was going on down there. Now in that inner cell, it worsened. “My body is rotting,” he screamed in a manner that broke my heart. “Please help me, please!”

His pleas were loud, persistent and touching. “Help me out!!!” he would say. ‘Who is there to help me out? My body is rotting. Help me out! Help me out!!!”

Even though he had rebuffed my repeated warnings not to pass water on to Uchenna, I felt pity for him. I would later crawl over to the cell to hand him an anti-mosquito cream smuggled to me earlier in the day. It helped a bit but didn’t entirely solve the problem.

It was such a relief to be taken out of the cell to the court on Friday morning and to Ikoyi Prison in the evening. When 46 new inmates, I think, arrived at the prison on Monday evening, I was stunned to spot Uchenna’s sparkling white teeth shining through from the crowd. He had become markedly lean and his laughter this time was shallow. How he got to prison, I still don’t know.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_4g4VlyeDs

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/reporters-diary-living-with-a-mad-cell-mate-set-up-by-warders-abducted-by-the-police-3/

Thank you Lord for freedom..

Chai

Nothing like Freedom

Few views and comments.

Our priorities are displaced in this country.

Societal ills receives less attention while frivolities are the order of the day.

bobowaja:
Few views and comments.

Our priorities are displaced in this country.

Societal ills receives less attention while frivolities are the order of the day.

I am telling you, I am still surprise this has not gotten to the front-page.

Nice read

Mods front page

Investigative journalism at its very best.

Hhmmm!!!The country is gone.

And some people will still ask why people run if they've not committed any offence. Better read up all the 3 parts of this exposé to make you face reality.