Re; THE 2nd LEG OF THE UMUAHIA PRISONS VISIT

Re; The Umuahia Prisons Department of the Absu LawClinic successfully went for the 2nd leg of their Prison Visit to Nigerian Prisons, Aba Road, Umuahia, Abia State on the 19th February, 2016.

    On the visit to the prisons, yesterday, we met with the prison authorities who ushered us in to the  Prison Hall, and gathered the inmates there to meet with us, after which we were asked to address them on our purpose for the visit.

   After this, we, a 21 man team, divided ourselves into 7 groups of 3 persons each. This was to enable us attend to as much inmates as we can within a short period of time the prison warders allotted to us for our purpose. 

   Using this method, we were able to interview a number of  45 inmates.

    Some cases we got were political, e.g a man arrested and charged for armed robbery due to and only because of his membership of I.P.O.B. some were highly delicate, e.g, a man who confessed to selling his one month old baby for #200,000 because he wanted to use #60,000 to pay for his wife's post natal complications, that we should help him. Majority of all other cases were cases of wrongful denial of bail against persons who could not afford a shortee with up to 3 years tax clearance, some other cases were cases of the famous holding charge syndrome; where persons would be deliberately charged to a court without jurisdiction to hear their matter, with the end result that the persons stay longer in detention waiting for a proper charge in the proper court, which most times takes an inordinately long time.

   A recurrent factor in all the cases we handled was that most inmates do not have a legal representative, they have never spoken to a lawyer before, but they have been charged to Magistrate Court, (a court without jurisdiction to try capital offences like armed robbery). Without persons speaking up for them.

 Also, At the prisons we saw Children of 9-12 years, young  persons of 15- 17 years, some in tears calling on us fervently to rescue them from the harsh realities they have been made to face in prison.

   As Final Year Law Students, primarily, this first hand experience of how the society is, was purely different from the laws we read in our textbooks, the various protection afforded to these persons by the law, and how things should be.

Amongst all these, The Absu LawClinic will start work immediately with all these cases at our disposal, working with all our sponsors to ensure we release as much pre-trial detainees as we can, within the bounds of the law.

Its our duty to the community.

Absulawclinic.