A Harrowing Experience: Prison Life

I just read a harrowing experience about a lady who was poised to make it big in the banking industry but got into big trouble due to carelessness. So, here it is.

Back in 2003, Annabel (not real name) had a flourishing banking career in one of the new generation banks. Due to her outstanding performance and dedication to duty, she was rewarded by the bank with rapid promotion. With fat pay cheque as a branch manager and family vacation abroad, life was sweet until suddenly, everything came crashing down.

From the comfort of her beautiful home, Annabel found herself in the prison where she spent three years in detention over huge sums of money she had taken from customers’ accounts to assist her immediate boss who was in trouble. In this edition, she narrates to Encounter her grace to grass story, how being in prison saved her life and intriguing lifestyle of the female prisoners.

How It Began

I never imagined that I will find myself in prison one day. As the problem I had at work began to unfold, it occurred to me that I might eventually go to prison over the matter. At that point, the thought of prison began to flash on my mind. Ironically, every step I took to avoid going to prison got me into more trouble. I was in prison for three and half years as an awaiting trial inmate. I was given a very stringent bail condition and since I couldn’t meet the terms, I had to remain in prison.

The Problem

I had an immediate boss who joined our bank from another bank. Before he left us, he had a problem with our bank and was highly indebted to us. So he requested my assistance saying that the police were after him. He particularly pleaded with me to remove some money from my high networth clients’ accounts to cover his own transactions and that within two weeks, he would repay the money. He kept crying and pleading with me that he would lose his job if he didn’t repay his indebtedness to the bank which was as a result of some forex investment transactions which he claimed were hanging.

Without doing my own investigation to ascertain whether what he was saying was true, I just gave him the huge money that he requested. He did all the documentations and being the head then, he had the authority to liquidate the bad investment. I co-signed the liquidation as his assistant. Days turned into weeks, months and years, still there was no sign on his part about repaying the money I took from customers’ accounts. After waiting for a while, I became worried. I later discovered the he was actually a very dubious person as some serious bad loans were also linked to him. He was asked to leave the bank majorly because of those bad loans.

At that point, I became really jittery but he further assured me that once he gets a job, he will repay the money I took from customers’ accounts. Even after he got a new job, he still didn’t show seriousness about giving me the money. One day, he called me to say that he needed a million to sort out a matter which had to do with the problem and he had been locked up in a police station somewhere. I still sent him the money believing he will sort out the matter as he promised.

I became a manager after he was sacked. After a while, customers began to ask for their funds. When the matter was getting out of hand, I began to take money from other customers to pay those that were really troubling me. So it became a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. I was really confused because my former boss refused to pay back the money. On one occasion, he paid about one quarter of the fund and that was all.

I soon realised I was alone in the problem and kept looking for ways to pacify the affected customers but every action I took, got me deeper into trouble until the bubble burst and a customer got the police to arrest me. I also fell victim to another colleague who offered to introduce me to import business from which I could use the profit to settle the problem I had in my bank. She ended up defrauding me and never returned the money I gave her. I was really in total mess during that period.

Trial

After my initial arraignment, the matter suffered several adjournments until I was granted bail in very strong terms. The condition attached to the bail was like bringing back my grandmother from the grave.

My lawyer eventually requested for variation of the bail conditions after I had spent about three years in prison and the court was magnanimous enough to grant it which led to my release. This was about 11 years ago. At some point, the trial was transferred to another judge and then subsequently to another judge again. Each time we move to one court, the matter would start afresh. I also spent huge amount of money on several lawyers for that long period.

Engagement In Prison

I am a very restless person so I spent my time in prison getting involved in a lot of things. I enrolled for a course in the National Open University and also began to teach some of the inmates preparing for the examination. The activities actually helped me to keep my mind off from my problems.

Punishment

Punishment is part of the prison system and I believe that without punishment, the place would really be a total mess. Phones are not allowed inside the prison but you would still find inmates that have phones and make calls any time they like. I have witnessed when an inmate was caught with a phone and was kept in a single cell. Inside that single cell, there is no space for movement and the inmate would only stand or sit. The inmate was also deprived of food for days, would also urinate and defecate there. I experienced it once and I can tell you that it was hell inside hell.

Feeding

The food in the prison was very terrible that even a hungry dog will reject it. We eat beans every morning throughout the week. The eba and egusi soup served in the afternoon is without fish or meat. It is only on special occasions like Christmas, New Year, Easter celebration that we eat small pieces of meat.

Sober Reflection

I didn’t plan to go to the prison but I can tell you that the experience had a significant impact on my life. Sometimes I feel bad knowing where I could have been if the problem that sent me there didn’t occur, but I still remain grateful to God because it could have been worse for me too. Sometimes too, I wish I could just erase my brain so that I don’t remember anything.

Those were my thoughts then but when I came out, I started appreciating all that I went through. I am still trying to properly reintegrate into the society but my experience in prison has helped me to be strong. My story was really about falling from grace to grass and I was always thinking of committing suicide just to end it all. At the onset of my problem before I got into the prison, any time I drove through the 3rd Mainland bridge, I always had the mind to just park my car and jump into the lagoon. On several occasions, I almost did it because I could not imagine how I would be able to get out of the trouble I got myself into. Ironically when I got into the prison and began to hear other inmates’ cases, I realised that my case was not as bad as I had thought. The suicide thought vanished immediately since then.

Note: This article is mostly an extract from nairaland.com, excerpted and republish under open to use licence.

Conclusion

There are other parts of the article that I can't even make reference to, as they are too much for me; the rape, the violence, the deaths, the circumstantial and/or forced lesbian/gay sex etc. Prison life is no joke. The prison system might have been built for rehabilitation purposes, but in practice, it has nothing to do with rehabilitation and everything to do with punishment and stripping whatever is left of the human dignity in those it catches. After reading this, do you still want to continue in that illegal trade? Do you still want to keep defrauding people? Do you still want to live everyday with the threat of prison looming around you?

Prison doesn't rehabilitate or toughen you, don't deceive yourself. It breaks whatever humanity is left in you. It takes a lot for anyone to go in there and make it out a better person. So live tight and work right, so I don't have to read this kind of account about you.

Thanks for reading...