- Says ‘I rather beg to survive than steal again’
A 31-year-old man, Victor Sunday Emmanuel, who just got released from Ilesa Medium Correctional Centre in Osun State, has narrated how the discomfort and torture he received in the custody made him regretted his criminal actions.
Sharing his experiences with The Point on the day he regained his freedom at the premises of the correctional facility, Emmanuel swore never to return to crimes again, saying he would prefer begging to stealing for survival.
The father of one had been sentenced to six months imprisonment by an Ilesa Magistrate’s Court for stealing about 30 tubers of yam in July, 2024 at a farm he was hired to work as a labourer in Ijebu-Ijesa.
Victor was arrested by the police after a brother of the owner of the farm caught him carrying the stolen tubers away from the farm.
The Police in the state dragged him before a Magistrate’s Court sitting in Ilesa and he was jailed for six months with the sum of N25, 000 as option of fine for the theft.
The farmer, who had informed the court that hunger led him to steal the yam, was not able to raise the fine, hence his confinement at Ilesa Medium Correctional Centre to serve his jail term.
After spending about two months in prison custody, Emmanuel was freed following intervention of a non-governmental organisation, Anchor Heritage Initiative.
It was gathered that the organisation got wind of his incarceration and decided to assist him regain his freedom by paying the fines.
On the day he was to be released, Emmanuel had joined other inmates in clearing the bushes surrounding the facility and was heard by The Point reporter telling one of his colleagues how he became a convict.
Eventually, when officials of the prison informed him that an NGO paid his fine and he was to leave the facility, Emmanuel couldn’t hide his joy as he profusely thanked the organisation for coming to his rescue, assuring that he would never return to crime.
“I thank Anchor Heritage Initiative for paying my fine and releasing me from prison. I pray God to continue to strengthen the organisation. Like I confessed before the court, I did what I did because of hunger. But, I have learned my lessons now. I will never go back to crime. I prefer to beg or even sell pure water to survive rather than stealing,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of the staff in charge of the correctional centre, an official from the Welfare Section, Josephine Olelua, commended the NGO for always giving new lease of life to inmates and charged other organisations to emulate Anchor Heritage Initiative.
After Emmanuel left the custody, he told The Point that he hails from Uyo in Akwa Ibom and that his wife had left him to Libya to “hustle” while their daughter had been with his mother-in-law.
He gave more insight into his hardship and efforts to cater for his daughter led him to jail, saying, “I have been the only person catering for our baby, paying her school fees, feeding and clothing her. I get to sustain myself and my family through the farm work I am doing.
From my farm work, anything that I get, I use it to take care of myself and my daughter.
“I stole 30 tubers of yam because things were not moving well for me and I needed to feed myself and my family. I committed the crime at the farm I was working at in Ijebu-Ijesa. I was caught on the road while taking the yam home by a brother to the owner of the farm. I stole the yams because of hunger and secondly because of my daughter’s school fees.
Since I didn’t get to borrow money from my brother, and there is no other person to assist me, so, I decided to steal the yams so that I can raise the sum of N10, 000 for my child’s school fees and other needs and use the remaining one to feed,” he explained.
On his experiences in the custody, Emmanuel said bedbugs feasted on his loins each time he lies on an old bed given to him in the custody, noting that the bitter pain he got from the attack and torture by some other senior inmates in his cell made him regretted his criminal action.
“I have not been normal ever since I came inside this prison. Most times I cannot sleep because of bedbugs and I had to be praying to God to rescue me from the prison. I was also praying for my daughter. I have learnt great lessons staying in a prison facility.
Whenever I lie down, bedbugs feast on my loins and mosquitos bite me all over my body.
IG (the oldest inmate in his prison cell) always beat me for not doing one thing or the other.
“As I am out of the prison, I don’t pray to ever return there. Even if I am hungry, I prefer begging people to stealing. I can do any work. I will look for monthly work. I didn’t finish secondary school because my father didn’t take care of me. I can even be selling pure water just to survive,” he stated.
