If you had the misfortune of being born in the geographical space called Nigeria, then you would surely never have a normal life. This must now have dawned on a JSS3 student, Wisdom Azunda (16), who is languishing in Degema prison in Rivers State, simply because his family had no money to pay the bribe the police demanded for his release. And to make sure, he is remanded in prison custody, the police falsified his age to 18 to clear the way for the magistrate at Rumoji ,Port Harcourt to commit him to custody.
A corrupt and unjust criminal law system is now about to prevent the boy from writing his JSS3 examination coming up this month.
Our source says that Wisdom has been behind bars for nearly one month as an inmate in the Degema Federal Prisons. He is due in court again on July 7 and by then his classmates would have finished writing the said JSS3 exams.
The story, as told by the boy to our source in prison, is that he was implicated by a former schoolmate, Freedom Ikpendu, aged also 16yrs old and detained as well in the same prison. And one 21 year old jeremiah Ubong, an apprentice sales boy at a motorbike shop in Elele, Rivers State.
According to him, Freedom, who stole a bicycle, was caught and beaten to pulp by some area boys, based on a tip off from someone who saw him with the bike.
And when Freedom was pressured to name some accomplice, as a condition to stop the beating, he had to mention the name of his Master Wisdom, which was the first name that came to his mind. However, the torture did not cease as the area boys insisted that he (Freedom) must show them who he sold the bike to. So they marched to bicycle market in Elele .
Desperate to put an end to his torture, Freedom pointed at the first Bike shop and pointed at the sales boy Jeremiah, a young man he was allegedly meeting for the first time, as the buyer.
They were all handed over to the police and they became for them mincemeat.
A source in the same prison, who is moved by Wisdom’s ordeal confirmed to us that he “ extracted Freedom’s confession here in detention after giving him 500 Naira to feed . Something that should have been done by the police instead of trying to extort them and inflating their ages in order to make them suffer. Who is the worst criminal? Freedom is an orphan and a drop out of school and was hungry on that fateful day that he tried to steal the bike.
“Whereas Wisdom is the 3rd Child from a family of 8. His mum is down with stroke and the dad recovering from bike accident.
“I too am here languishing for what I don’t know about but I cry from this cell to the authorities or any lawyer that can help this young man, to please come to his aid. This is how the poor and vulnerable are sacrificed in Nigeria with no one to speak for them. Imagine falsifying the young boy’s age just so he can suffer, because he is poor?” asked our source.
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