His name was Suleiman Aliyu. On paper, his crime did not exist, and when this reporter encountered him, it was clear no judge worth his salt could ever find him guilty of the excuse of a charge an investigating police officer (IPO) had relied on to detain him.
Aliyu was this lanky, dark and very unassuming young man who tried and failed to appear fierce on several occasions. He was one of four friends living in a rented room in the Ojo area of Lagos State until April 20, when the police arrested him for a homicide they knew he did not commit.
A week earlier, the young man had gone to a building site in the Lekki area of the state, a distance of at least 67.7 km, where he would tile floors and sleep on site. “I learned tiling from a Togolese master, and that is what I have been doing to earn money,” he told this reporter on May 4, during a chat in a holding cell they shared at the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Panti, Lagos.
While away at this site, one of his roommates had been accused of causing the death of another man. This roommate fled, and the two others fled with him. Unaware of this development, Aliyu returned home on April 20 but was welcomed with blows and physical attacks as an irate mob needed a scapegoat. The police were invited, and their fantastic idea was to lock the man up until he produced the accused.
After meeting Aliyu, this reporter enlisted the help of Ridwan Oke, managing partner of Iris Attorneys LP. Oke and Omotosho Abdullah, his associate, swung into action and got the IPO to let Aliyu go on May 13. The tiler spent 23 irreclaimable days in detention for a crime he did not commit.
According to Section 7 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015, “a person shall not be arrested in the place of a suspect”.
This means it was illegal for the police to arrest Aliyu in place of his roommate.
FINDING ALIYU
When this reporter first got thrown into a cell, he was quickly introduced to the ritual of extortion occurring in Nigerian cells. New inmates would sit in wait, away from others, until a Marshal – leader of the prisoners, who was an inmate himself – approached to probe and collect money “to take care of the cell”.
Before the Marshal performed this ritual, any other inmate could take it upon themself to bring a new inmate in, usher them to where they would sit and engage them in light conversation. This they referred to as ‘lapping’.
“Na me lap am o, make nobody follow am talk until Marshal come,” I heard Aliyu say to another inmate on May 1, after I settled into a quiet corner.
Marshal and a dedicated officer in charge of food (O/C food) were inmates who were afforded the freedom to stay outside the cell during the day and help inmates run errands. I had to wait.
During this wait, Aliyu came over to where I was sitting, bent down and asked what I did. I told him I had no idea and was trying to figure it out. A smile began to form on his face, and it soon became so wide he couldn’t hide it. “I no understand this English o,” he finally said.
This tiler beckoned on an Igbo-speaking inmate to come over to interact with me because he struggled with English and assumed I would not understand his Pidgin English or Yoruba. “This one na oyinbo o, dem carry am come from abroad,” he told other inmates.
I soon figured he misunderstood my narration of policemen from Abuja picking me up and wanting to fly me out of Lagos.
READ ALSO: REPORTER’S DIARY: To Avoid Embarrassment, Police Moved Me from Panti to NCCC to FCID in 1 Day
His reason for earlier emphasising that he lapped me, though, was that when inmates lap new inmates, it means they show them around, find them a spot to sleep and, in return, benefit from whatever financial aid comes to this new inmate.
No one ever came to visit Aliyu. He would hang around other inmates all day, appealing or trying to draw favours so he could get food or money to feed. At night, he and a few others would wash disposable plates and spoons used by all inmates during the day. These plates could be as many as 50 to 80 pieces.
On my first day there, I imagined he was similar to what movies describe cell bullies to be, but by day two, I had a feeling prison happened to him.
PRISON HAPPENED TO ALIYU
Anyone could see Aliyu struggling to fit in with the tougher inmates. On May 3, after spending three days in the same outfit, I bought detergent to wash my T-shirt, but this young man saw me making for the bathroom and firmly volunteered to do so himself. It was not a normal gesture he would make for those he was lapping, especially one who hadn’t given him anything yet, but I couldn’t let him. “What is this man in here for?” I wondered.
I wasn’t the only one who sensed the oddity of his presence there. The day before, a skinny inmate, Umaru, had stood up to two bulkier inmates who accused him of extorting too much out of one particular inmate he was lapping. Umaru lashed out and dared them to a fight. If I were a betting man, I would have assumed I could take on Umaru with both hands behind my back, because he looked harmless.
So, at nightfall on May 3, some inmates were talking about Umaru’s bravery from the night before, and I could see Aliyu listening while spotting his signature smile. Dramatically, a few hours after the conversation ended and people retired to the hard floors, grumbling began over some noise coming from the direction of the bulky inmates Umaru stood up to.
No one would walk over to tell them to stop, so Aliyu did. “Una dey make noise na, ahnahn. You no see say people wan sleep?” He shouted.
“Who be that? You de craze? Abi Ogun wan kill you? I go break your head now.”
“Break it na,” Aliyu retorted. There and then, I could see Umaru’a actions had lit up his belly. This smiling tiler was a new man, and I could tell prison was happening to him. By morning, he and I discussed the circumstances that led to his arrest, and he narrated how he came to suffer in his roommate’s stead.
“I have an aunt in Lagos I can stay with if I get out,” he told me. “My parents are in Ibadan, and I cannot go back to Ojo.”
A day after this conversation, I ended up in FCID Abuja, and Oke began working on getting Aliyu out.
Since his release, he has reunited with his father and gone back to doing the job that pays him while staying away from trouble.
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