National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
Dayo Emmanuel
A non for profit organisation, the Prisoners Reformation and Rehabilitation Centre has held a youth leadership seminar in Lagos.
The event which held at the weekend in Lagos featured several lectures and performances by artistes.
According to the convener, Chima Chinedu, the event was staged using entertainment to attract youths out of criminal behaviours.
Chinedu, a graduate of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, who had helped established a recording studio at the Ikoyi Prisons for inmates interested in music, told journalists at the event what created in him the passion for ensuring empowerment programs for prison inmates.
“The journey started when I went to visit a friend in prison. A mother came to visit her son who was in the condemned cell and before her arrival, the visiting period was over. She cried and cried because she may not see him again before execution,” he narrated, continuing that, “This experience touched me greatly and I started planning ways to reach out to the youths.”
“We have opened computer centres in prisons to teach skills the inmates could leverage on when released. But must we wait for people to go to prison before we reach out to them? Almost 80% of people in prisons in Nigeria are youths,” he laments.
In her own lecture, Deputy Comptroller of Prisons, Mrs. Leticia Isioma Onwuli states the need for young people to know about the prisons.
According to her “We only encourage people from 18 and above to visit the prison. It is not for people in primary and secondary schools, but we can only be at seminars to enlighten people.”
Onwuli however listed three categories of people in the prisons. “There are three classes of inmates I have recognised in the prisons. The ones from the streets; these ones want to go to prisons, they are ready to misbehave,” she said.
Second on her list are those from stable homes. “There are the ones from homes, they are neither here nor there. They are easily drawn by those in the streets who are already down.”
The prison official continued that “The third category are those who make little mistakes and find themselves in the prisons,” enjoining the youths to keep themselves busy with legitimate activities that can prevent them from prison.
She however enjoined the society to accept and integrate ex-convicts into the society. “There was a comedian in the prison who later performed at the Stand Up Nigeria show. She left the prison and today she has relocated to Ghana because according to her, she was not given chance in Nigeria.”
Encouraging youths at the event, a musician, Vocal slender told the participants the importance of education and imagination. A former worker at the Ojota Lagos dump site who through self-help became a role model for several youths said, “I was a secondary school drop-out. I lived at the Ojota dump for ten years but I didn’t end my life there,” he said.
The musician narrated how he found interest in reading good books thrown away and brought to the dump site. “I first read the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe at the dump site. I am a JSS 3 drop out but I developed myself through reading books people threw away,” he narrated.
The entertainer who rose from the dump site to fame today has traveled wide in Europe. “Other books I read include My Command, Because I am Involved. I read books on Nelson Mandela, I read the Audacity of Hope and many other books that developed me. Life is a process,” he concluded.
In his own presentation, CEO of Question Mark Label, Kelvin Lucciano said entertainment is a tool to draw the youths away from vices. According to him, “A lot of artistes have been given opportunities by God, record labels and individuals who have not maximized their opportunities.”
He added that, “The best story is from nothing to something. Daddy Showkey could have turned out an armed robber but he found music, he was given opportunity by God and by some people and he maximized it.”
Lucciano however advised the Nigerian “If government at the Local Government levels can build recording studios in each Local Government Area, build vocational centres for people to get engaged productively, they won’t keep rushing to Lagos to seek opportunities.”
In his own remark, the former psychologist at the Ikoyi Prisons, Mr. Ogbonna addressed participating youths the time is now to develop their talents for better future. Ogbonna, now operating from the Kirikiri Prisons had established the 3R Club at the Ikoyi Prisons where several talents were discovered and trained.
“Inmates are discovered and grouped in departments. They are into script writing, studio management. We have entertainment department, we did talent hunt. Anybody can partner with us to do entertainment. There are lots of talents behind the wall.
Other facilitators at the event included Amaka Orakwe, Nkem Offonabo among others.
