Update on China's case.

On the 29th of June 2016, the AbsuLawClinic team went to Umuekwule in Afugiri Umuahia, to visit the relative of one of our pre trial detainee clients, a 15 years old boy, who has been remanded in Umuahia Prisons, for almost 2years, he has since been granted bail during the jail delivery exercise that took place on the 4th of May 2016.
The reason for our visit was to convince one of his relatives to be his surety.

Our Client, Chima, a 15years old orphan, with no immediate siblings except a step mum, step grandmother, and step brothers. Who see Chima as  an "Abandoned government property".
They insist that Chima is a deviant and should remain in prison custody, they are not willing to sign anything on his behalf, infact he is an abandoned property (sic).
In Chima, however, we see a juvenile delinquent with great potentials and an amazing wealth of talent. The Prison warders spoke so fondly of the little boy, they told us he could do a lot of amazing things including the ability to repair phones, make slippers, and a host of other skills,  that we grew passionate and very interested about his course.
Unfortunately, after much persuasion on our part, the relatives blatantly refused to see what we see and insisted he should remain in prison custody even after we explained that he hasn't been charged to the High Court nor at worst convicted, he is still awaiting trial for the offence of conspiracy to commit armed robbery
We succeeded nevertheless, to convince them to agree to atleast come and see the little boy in prison for the very first time since be was remanded. This agreed visit is scheduled to be done together with our student clinicians on the 6th of July, 2016, at the Umuahia Prisons, where our client is been remanded.

We do not plan to stop here, we are presently working on a profile on Chima's case to as much as we can use his story as a test case scenario to draw attention to similar cases deserving attention in Umuahia Prisons in particular and Nigerian Prisons in general.
In this regard we plan to partner with some notable N.G.O's,  Child Protection Networks and ultimately, get the attention and intervention of our parent body Nulai Nigeria,

Our Stand- Chima has no business being in prison custody as a juvenile.

Chima is an orphan left to die and ravish in prison by the relatives due to they say he is a "deviant"

Assuming without conceding their position is correct, our client remaining in prison can never be a solution. Chima needs a real guardian to help mentor and channel his amazing skills positively.

So many great men today in our society passed through this deviant stage, they were never given up on by their parents, sadly Chima has none, we the society must stand up for him.

Its our duty to the community.

AbsuLawClinic