Mark Idiahi, the founder of SecondChance Foundation, an NGO that is focused on prisoners’ rehabilitation, reorientation and reintegration, narrates his Christmas Day experience spent with male inmates at the Kirikiri Maximum Prison in Lagos. He spoke with MABEL DIMMA.
How it started
The spirit of Christmas is an initiative that we conceived. We got it as an inspiration and it became a burden; it is a love outreach to prison inmates. We thought about how to make Christmas memorable for those who are less privileged, especially those incarcerated. So the idea came that we should reach out to them by providing food, toiletries, and then spice up the day by bringing in music, comedy and other such. We approached the prison authorities with our plan, which they welcomed. When this happened we had barely three weeks to prepare for it. What I did was to put it up on Facebook and reached out privately to some of my friends with the idea and asked for their support. A lot of them looked at it like, where is this guy coming from? – because this is the first time I am embarking on a project where I had to rely on some support system outside of myself. I have done bigger events where I had to reach out to corporate organisations, but on this, I’m telling people, ‘I need you to give me at least N1,000 for a meal per person because we want to feed 1,200 people” – though eventually we fed 1,700 people. Just to cut the story short, most of the people who pledged never showed up for some reasons – but no ill feelings. Five days to the event, we started getting funds. Someone called from Austria, another from Italy, from Germany, and they all sent money, so we were able to get all that we needed to visit the prison. We got a DJ, musicians, comedians and some others. For me, this was my first close encounter with prison inmates. That created what I will call a moment of epiphany for me because a lot of people believe that prisoners are these people that should be forgotten because they deserve what is being dealt to them. For instance, when I spoke to one of my friends, he said, “If na prison, forget them o. Those people wey don kill, kidnap, steal and all that. If the money too much for you, give me some.” What he didn’t know was that at the point I was speaking with him, I didn’t even have the money for the project, but I just had the passion that it would happen because this is not one of those good ideas. I have had a couple of good ideas, some things that we had to brainstorm and go into conceptualisation process to conceive, but this was not one of them.
A vision is born
I got this inspiration in the night, woke up and went to my mum who came visiting and shared the vision with her. At the point I received the inspiration, I said to myself, if this is something God wants me to do, let me see some signs, because people were already tensed up, they didn’t have money; so if we have to do this, let it be something that God is involved in. My mum is a retiree. When I shared it with her, she was so excited and said she would support it by giving some cash. That was the first motivation I got from outside myself. Then when I approached the prison and met with the deputy comptroller of prison, I just said a few words and he said, ‘I’m not the only person to hear this.’ So he beckoned on someone to call the psychologist, Mr Aluu. The man came and stood; he declined taking a seat, and I was asked to continue speaking. I shared the purpose of my mission and I will never forget that moment as he held my hands and started praying out loud. He said, ‘I am barely three weeks here, I was posted from Ikoyi Prison to this place. And when I came here I was praying that God should send an angel. What I see today is an answer to that prayer because I know that I needed somebody to come at this time to have this kind of event so that lives can be transformed.’ I became a bit emotional because this had to be orchestrated by God; this is not just a one-off thing, and then I was asked to keep them updated about the event.
Sources of funds
Five of my friends came through for me but the ones that God used to make this happen were the three people from outside the country. I did not speak to them about the project, they saw it on Facebook and decided to be part of it. With these monies we were able to buy the toiletries, table water, books and then we also cooked food and packaged for them.
In the spirit of Christmas
On the day of the programme, we came fully prepared. Let me tell you another sign – my mum was the first sign/confirmation that this was good. Second was the way I was received at the prison by the deputy comptroller and the psychologist. And third was when we eventually got to the prison. We were meant to use this hall that would not have taken more than 500 people, but when we got there that morning, we saw that a massive tent had been mounted in the open space and they thought we were the ones. The deputy comptroller came out by himself and they started making enquiries, only to discover that there was this group who was to have an event three days after ours; they came to mount the canopy three days in advance and that seldom happens. Can you imagine what they paid? So we had the event under the canopy, the inmates came out and all had fun and danced. Now, a lot of people saw prisoners, but I saw diamonds in their raw form. I saw people who though they have been incarcerated and locked behind bars still have their potentials intact. Recently I was at TVC, and the guy asked me politely, ‘Have you ever been arrested before?’ He was being diplomatic, I know what he wanted to know was if I am an ex-convict because of the passion I have. In my life I have never been arrested or got anyone arrested; this is a burden God gave me, so it has nothing to do with my experiences.
Interaction with the inmates
I interacted with the inmates but the highpoint for me that day was the encounter I had with a man who was probably in his 60s. The man is in prison, a victim of stroke, so despite all the fun, music, comedy, this man kept a very straight face – no smile. I went to where he was sitting and said, ‘Sir, why won’t you smile? Smile, we are having fun.’ He caught himself, because it was like he was not conscious of his surrounding, and said, ‘But I am smiling.’ I repeated that he was not smiling – but I understood, I could relate with that. What happens is that when life hits you between the eyes, every attempt by the comedians to make you happy becomes futile. This man was completely in pain, he had forgotten what it means to laugh. So I asked if he minded a hug from me, he said no, and then the crowd behind him shouted, ‘He needs a hug!’ When I hugged him, I saw the smile on his face. That picture stuck in my subconscious. He hugged me and didn’t want to let go. I said to him, ‘This is not how the story ends. To you probably you think this is the end because you are here.’ (He had told me that his family had abandoned him. He had stroke but was still in prison). I said, ‘You know what, we want to be here for you. This is not how the story ends.’
The point is this, from the angle I am coming from, I do not believe the prisons should be a place where people that society has labelled ‘useless, culprits or convicts’ are dumped. It should be a place where people are rehabilitated; these people deserve second chance. Come to think of it, most of us, if given the circumstances they were in and put on the same shoes they put on, when they put on the shoes where they were, we would have fallen victim or done exactly or worse than they; they have already been judged by the system.
What next
One of them said to me in broken English, ‘Ol’ boy, I do am o. As I dey tell you so, if I commot here tomorrow, I no get something wey I dey do, I fit do another thing o.’ That brings us to the next phase of this project, which is from prison to the work place. We want to reach out to these people in partnership with corporate organisations with good hearts, to organise programmes, events, skill acquisitions, empowerment programmes and the like, so they can become useful to society. If we don’t do this, some of these guys can come out and become worse off; they want to avenge the pain and get back to society as a way to express their anger at the system which failed them. As I said to some of them (because I had an opportunity to speak to them), the real prison is not you being in a place where your legs are chained, because the person that wrote the most part of the New Testament section of the Bible was in chains when he did all of those writings. I have seen grown-up men looking nice in their beautiful suits, women prettily made up, yet they are in prison. The real prison is when you are held bound by envy, malice, anger; you are not free until your mind and soul is free. So you may be in incarceration, but the fact that your mind is free from all of these complexes and evil, that alone is something you should be grateful for. I understand the beauty of freedom, but I tell people that freedom has a responsibility. Some of them are where they are today because the freedom they had was mismanaged, because when freedom is not well managed, it leads to all of these – throwing caution to the wind, breaking all the rules in the book and then you find yourself in this confinement. What we want to do in this next phase is to reach out to them by organising skill acquisition programmes – it is actually three Rs (rehabilitation, reformation and reorientation/reintegration) because we know they will definitely be set free. We want to look at the cases of some of these people; some are locked up because they did not have counsel to represent them or someone to look into their case. So we would like to work with some lawyers on a pro bono basis, who will be willing to look at these cases to see how they can be better addressed. I am promising that I want to change the world, this is my philosophy, and we don’t believe we can reach everybody, but we believe that everybody can reach at least one person. You know the world is like a boomerang echo system. Let me use this story to put it in context: A little boy had an issue with his mother. He started throwing a tantrum, insulting the mother and eventually ran out of the house because they lived by this country house that was close to a forest with mountains. He climbed one of the mountains and yelled out, ‘I hate you!’ When he did that, there was an echo that sent his words back to him, ‘I hate you!’ He became terrified and ran back home, embraced the mum and said, ‘One big monster out there, because I said I hate you, told me he hates me’. The mum patted him and asked him to go back on the mountain top and tell the monster, ‘I love you!’ The boy went back and did same and again it echoed back at him. This time he was excited when he ran back to the mum. ‘The monster just told me that he loves me. Thank you so very much, mum,’ he said. And the mum was smiling. What the boy didn’t know was that it wasn’t a monster – you can’t get an echo if you never sowed a sound. Life is like that, it is a boomerang effect; once you throw it, it comes back to you. For the man out there who is comfortable, living in an iron-fenced house, he thinks that these can’t get to him; it is not his business to look at these downtrodden people whose lives are riddled with all kind of vices. You think that this is not your business but when the chips are down, you find that these things come back to you. This same person you ignore today might be the person who’ll terrorise and kidnap your family member tomorrow. So this is our business, everybody has to be concerned about it.
Event location
We had it at the Kirikiri Maximum Prison in Lagos for the men. There are different segments in the prison for male, female and medium, but this time around, we want to have it for the female. We can’t have the male and female come together because of some security reasons. When you get to the place, you will see the barricades, the male and female don’t mix.
About the organisation
It is an NGO, SecondChance Foundation, and documentation is on-going with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC); that should be sorted out in a few weeks. We want it devoted to prison ministries. We used Wealth Creation Global Initiative to organise this because I am the founder, but we want an NGO that will be focused on prison rehabilitation.
Is the project just about Christmas?
Initially we had thought it would be a one-off thing, and that is why we tagged it ‘The spirit of Christmas’, but now, after the event, the feedback we got from them – even though they didn’t know how to ask it of us so it doesn’t look like they are asking too much – we could see that this is something that is not a one-off thing. We have decided to do this quarterly. In March we want to reach out to the female prisoners and share the same love and courage with them. All of these that we have done, what is important to me are the words that we have spoken. The seeds, the word we have sown into their hearts, the hope, because hope is the only thing that is stronger than fear. When a man has lost hope, it is over, that man cannot do anything.
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