CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION:COLONIAL SYSTEMS OF CONTROLViviane Saleh-HannaA long dirt road begins with the casual barrel of a gun, guarding a boundary, allowing selective access to outsiders and controlled exit to insiders. The few outsiders who are allowed to step past those guns and over the invisible, mysterious line in Kirikiri are faced with tall concrete walls inflicting visible boundaries and guns illustrating more clearly the visual and violent infliction of control. All visible boundaries within the Nigerian Prison 'Service' grounds are accentuated by the binding green gates built into the concrete walls, meant to function as points of transition between the two worlds: the world inside Nigerian prisons and the world outside them. The walls I see before me every time I enter a prison, anywhere in the world, are not just walls. They are symbols of degradation and violence; they are statements of disregard and dehumanization; they are perpetrators of myth and fear; and above all they are clear, concrete representations of the inhumanity capable of emerging in the name of euphemized humanities.As I step beyond the gates and enter the world of prisons in Nigeria, I am faced with prison officials in green uniforms tryingto maintain order among and control over convicted prisoners in blue uniforms. This is simply a world of green uniforms trying to keep blue uniforms behind the walls. Not as concrete but just as visible is the struggle to control all physical, mental, and spiritual undertakings. Colours mark power, not people: green uniforms taking shifts to monitor, control, and punish blue uniforms; blue uniforms fighting to exist as human beings inside a beast-like institution.While I was in Nigeria, from October 2000 to November 2002, there were 142 prisons holding approximately 55,000prisoners, sixty-two percent of whom were awaiting trial. While 20,000 prisoners (thirty-eight percent) had been convicted inside a courtroom, approximately 35,000 prisoners were imprisoned without legal representation or the chance to appear in court.1 Those 35,000 people did not always have prison uniforms; 2 they wore the clothes they had been arrested in and, as the years went by, whatever clothes they had been able to get from those around them. I met prisoners who had served up to ten years awaiting trial and, if convicted, were not given "time served" recognition. An ex-prisoner I worked with at the PRAWA3 office, a man I knew as Papa, often spoke about the ten years he had spent awaiting trial for a drug offence and the eight years he had been sentenced to serve. He had spent eighteen years in prison. Excerpted from Colonial Systems of Control: Criminal Justice in Nigeria by Viviane Saleh-Hanna All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
