42.2 Sefi Atta

Visit Is Free

Her return is long overdue. She must apologize for that and also for being too optimistic the last time she was here. However, Kirikiri Women’s Prison is not where she wants to be this Saturday afternoon in January 2020, to express her regret in person. Her drive from Lekki peninsula to Lagos mainland took almost three hours. She then got stuck in a gridlock caused by the tankers from Apapa Port Complex and is still a little nauseous from inhaling their exhaust fumes. Now that she’s finally arrived, skin clammy under her adire tunic and trousers, shoulders strained by the bags of provisions she carries, she is yet again frustrated by the thought that her so-called advocacy for inmates is no more than charity.

The prison looks exactly the same. It formally became a correctional center in August 2019 when President Buhari signed the Nigerian Correctional Service Bill. A sign at the entrance bears its former name above green double doors, one of which has a piece of paper taped to it stating,“Visit is free.” Enitan herself has never had to bribe anyone to see an inmate, but she is well aware that this is sometimes the case. The woman in charge here is a Christian and has a strict maternal approach to running the place. She makes sure rules are followed and inmates are treated fairly. They call her Mama, and she refers to them as her children or residents.

Two officials in green berets and khaki shirts and trousers welcome Enitan in unison as she walks through the doors.

“Happy new year, ma!”

“Same to you,” Enitan says.

Her gray hair is in a shuku bun. She wears glasses that magnify her laughter lines as she returns their smiles. One is an officer and the other a warder. Armed male guards stand nearby, and, on the wall ahead, is a quote by Maya Angelou: “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.” And another by Benjamin Franklin: “Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.”

The warder adjusts her belt under her potbelly. “Long time.”

“Yes,” Enitan says. “How was your Christmas?”

“Fine, ma. We thank God.”

The officer pulls back her beret to scratch her head. “Who are you seeing first today?”

“Blessing.”

“That girl. She’s been disturbing us over you.”

“Really?”

“Don’t mind her. Maybe she thinks you’re her mate.”

The officer gives Enitan a pat down and checks her bags of provisions, which contain toiletries and sanitary towels. She would ask Enitan to hand over her phone at this point if Enitan didn’t always leave it in her car.

The warder beckons. “Follow me.”

Enitan finds relief in the warder’s nonchalant stroll. She is familiar with the cracks and pockmarks in the cement floor of the corridor, the peels and scratches on the emulsion-painted walls, the slight odor of Dettol by the staff toilet door, and the distant voices of inmates.

Kirikiri is a group of penal facilities named after the town they are located in. The buildings are colonial bungalows with exteriors that have shown Public Works Department durability and interiors that are in dire need of renovation. There’s a medium and a maximum-security section for men and the one section for women. Statistics change and are hard to substantiate, but the total population is about four thousand. The men’s maximum prison is overcrowded by double its capacity; their medium prison is two-thirds occupied, and the women’s prison is relatively underutilized with a fluctuating count of two to three hundred.

The new law gives the state comptroller of prisons a right to reject inmates in congested prisons, and Enitan asks the warder if this is being exercised at the men’s maximum prison.

“Me, I don’t know,” the warder replies, “but they released some last year.”

Enitan shakes her head. “They were doing that anyway.”

Under the new law, the prisons are expected to reform, rehabilitate, and reintegrate prisoners, as they should. They are also meant to provide them with medical and other services, as they ought to. But Enitan has read newspaper reports about problems that persist in the men’s sections. The cells in the maximum prison apparently resemble a concentration camp, and inmates complain their meals are disgusting and their facilities are filthy. They are harassed and assaulted daily by fellow prisoners. If they get injured or fall sick, they have to provide their own medication and supplies, and, when they receive gifts or donations from people and organizations on the outside, their officials allegedly pilfer them. Conditions at the men’s medium prison are less grim, but there have been past protests over the disparity of treatment between inmates. VIPs, such as the odd corrupt politician and drug lord, are rumored to rent special cells, in which they have their own stoves, fans, and electricity generators, and to receive occasional conjugal visits.

In the women’s prison, most of the inmates are detainees who were arrested for crimes ranging from theft to murder. Some were falsely accused, and others just didn’t have any money to bribe the police to release them. Now they’ve been charged, they can’t afford to hire lawyers to apply for bail as they await their trials. The majority of them are sex workers in their twenties and, among the others, three were pregnant on admission and five have their children staying with them. Inmates wear casual clothes and are housed in dormitories and sleep on bunk beds. They have a crèche, a library, a health clinic, and a hair salon. During the day, they attend classes, workshops, and prayer services, and within certain hours they’re allowed to have visitors—family, friends, religious and advocacy groups, and lawyers like Enitan. Once in a while, celebrities make an appearance and afterward post online photos of themselves at the entrance.

“How come you haven’t changed your name?” Enitan asks.

The warder shrugs. “Even if we call it Kirikiri Hotel, it’s still a prison.”

Enitan nods in agreement. Besides the troubling matter of the inmates’ prolonged detentions, she hasn’t found any evidence that they’re mistreated. She hasn’t read or heard reports to that effect either but has no way of knowing how the prison operates in her absence. Her exchanges with officials are, at best, restrained.

At the back gate, the warder excuses herself and returns to the entrance. Enitan steps out alone into the courtyard, which is bordered on one side by yellow-and-green bungalows and has a designated reconciliation spot for inmates called the Love Garden. Her heartbeat quickens as the soles of her sandals crunch the graveled ground.

It has been twenty-five years since she was arrested for allegedly disobeying public orders during General Abacha’s regime. She was at a literary reading that evening, attended by supposed dissidents. State Security agents swarmed the venue, claiming the writers and audience were participating in unlawful political activities. She and her host, Grace Ameh, a journalist, were subsequently detained. She was thirty-five and pregnant with her daughter, Yimika, at the time. The terror that seized her during her overnight stay in the holding cell, and the stench of shit-buckets that followed her long after her release, were enough to motivate her to start her prison project, Indigene.

At first, she thought Indigene should focus on expectant mothers and mothers who were locked up with their children, but she found they got more attention, and sympathy, from legal and other organizations dedicated to their cause, so she decided instead to support women who were on death row or serving life terms. One of them came up with the name, which Enitan initially had reservations about, but the inmate said she used it to separate incarcerated prisoners like herself from detainees, whom she called Settlers. Enitan visits the prison three times a year, in December, April, and August. Indigene is a part-time endeavor, and she doesn’t solicit donations for it. She doesn’t represent the women either, as her firm specializes in commercial law. Apart from providing them with provisions, she sits with them and listens to their grievances. They tend to be overlooked by outsiders because they are convicted murderers and have no chance of getting out. There are eight of them in all, and Blessing, who has recently turned twenty-two, is the youngest.

Blessing is in a sulky mood when they meet in the reception area where inmates receive visitors. She is like this at times and can be demanding. The area, as usual, has been dusted down and swept clean. It has wooden benches and windows that allow a through draft and provide views of the palm trees and almond trees surrounding the premises. Other inmates and visitors are present and the warder on duty stands by as they carry on conversations in tones that would befit a funeral parlor.

“You didn’t even come and see me at Christmas,” Blessing says.

She has a disarmingly timid voice and sometimes seems conscious of her diction. Pretty, with upturned eyes, she is unrecognizable from the media photos in which her face is plastered with makeup and her forehead is covered with a wig. Today she sports didi braids and wears cut-out jeans and a knock-off Givenchy T-shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Enitan says, her expression contrite. “I was busy.”

She has taken to treating Blessing as a teacher would a student. She has to set boundaries; otherwise, she may leave herself open to manipulation.

Blessing pouts. “Only my mother and brother came.”

“What about your father?”

“He disowned me.”

“Ah-ah, why?”

“He says I have no conscience.”

“Hm. That’s a pity.”

During Blessing’s trial, her lawyer alleged that she’d stabbed her victim with a steak knife as he attempted to rape her. She was a second-year student at the University of Lagos and he was a senior bank executive and married with children. They were in a hotel room when the incident occurred. The prosecution established that he and Blessing were having an affair. They had corroborative text messages, which were exposed in the media, along with Blessing’s racy Instagram photos. He had just one photo in circulation, in which he wore a business suit and was surrounded by his employees. He was referred to as a family man while Blessing was called a runs girl. Her father initially professed her innocence, going as far as to say she went to the hotel to experience what it was like to have a room-service meal.

“I met Auntie Isioma,” Blessing says.

Enitan frowns. “Auntie Isioma?”

“The lawyer who bails people.”

“Oh, her!”

“She says she knows you.”

“Yes, yes, we do know each other. She came here?”

“In December. She wants to mentor me.”

Enitan hesitates. “That’s good. I didn’t know she was mentoring as well.”

Blessing explains that Isioma started a mentoring program for female prisoners which will begin this year. She won’t mentor them herself but will connect them to a group of professional women she belongs to.

Enitan nods encouragingly. Blessing and Isioma are Igbo. She doesn’t know if they’re from the same state or locality, but Blessing would have more in common with Isioma than with Enitan—their language, for one. Enitan and Isioma have never met in the course of carrying out their prison projects, but perhaps Isioma has come to realize that bailing out detainees is a never-ending task.

“Do you know your mentor?” Enitan asks.

“Not yet,” Blessing says.

“It would be interesting to find out who she is,” Enitan says.

She is fairly well acquainted with the group Isioma referred to. The women are qualified professionals all right, but some of the founders married wealthy men and never had noteworthy careers. Better known for flying first class around the globe to shop or visit their children in boarding schools and universities abroad, they are now at that hazardous middle-aged phase in their lives. They’re either bored with their Chanel and whatnot, or their lifestyles can’t sustain their longings to be admired and revered, so they turn their attention to social causes—child abuse, girls’ education, women’s empowerment, this and that. She calls them ladies who launch.

Isioma is in a different category. Ten or so years younger, she grew up in Enugu and settled in Lagos after law school. She is blatantly aspirational, as out-of-towners can be, and associates herself with society people she ought to disregard, such as the ladies who launch. She married a man from an old Lagos family. They had two sons and later divorced when his father’s estate got caught up in a will contest that carried on for years, during which he was too entitled to get a job. She has since had to be resourceful to maintain her financial status.

Blessing continues. “She wants to raise awareness about what is happening to me.”

“Yes?”

“She thinks I’ve been treated unfairly.”

Enitan guesses that Blessing is repeating Isioma verbatim here. Isioma “raises awareness” and “fights causes.” She is in “the activism space.” This type of American talk is all too common in Nigeria now. So is Isioma’s brand of activism, which probably originated in Hollywood.

Isioma approached Enitan at a party a few years ago and said she admired the work Enitan was doing at Indigene. Enitan joked that it wasn’t work; it was atonement for being able to get out of detention quickly. Isioma pressed her for details about her experience there, staring at her in wonderment, and ended their conversation by saying she’d like to pick Enitan’s brain someday, which sounded like a brutal threat. She did call a couple of times afterward, to ask questions about starting a similar project. Then they were out of contact for a while until they met again at a Lagos wedding, where the bride’s aso ebi colors were a challenging peacock green and citrine yellow that Enitan ignored and Isioma managed to observe. Isioma, without due humility, said she’d set up her own prison project and it was called I, after her initial. Enitan said, “Oh,” wondering why anyone would choose such a self-centered name.

Enitan would readily admit she doesn’t raise awareness. If people don’t care to know what women in prisons go through, that is okay with her. She certainly doesn’t fight causes, as there’s no use. The more belligerent women activists get in Nigeria, the more the government mocks them or overlooks them for their more softly spoken counterparts. She has never once called herself an activist or described activism in Nigeria as a space.

“I was wrong about your sentence,” she says to Blessing. “I honestly didn’t expect it.”

Blessing looks her in the eye. “Will they hang me?”

Enitan’s heartbeat quickens again. “No, they won’t.”

“But the judge said it in court.”

Enitan shakes her head. “Appeal and keep appealing.”

She has been through this with Blessing before on the phone. Blessing may not have got a life sentence, as she predicted during her previous visit in August, but death penalties in Nigeria these days are nearly always delayed indefinitely, and the new laws give the chief judge the right to commute them to life terms after a period of ten years has elapsed. This is all Blessing can hope for now.

Before her arrest, Blessing was studying mass communication and working part-time at a radio station. She ran errands for the CEO. How she got the job with him was one matter. What errands she was running for him was another, but through him she met the victim, who worked in the marketing and communications department of a bank. Blessing wanted to be an On-Air Personality, with a view to branding herself like Big Brother Naija contestants.

When Blessing’s sentence was announced in November last year, Enitan called her and afterward spoke to her lawyer, Tunji Banjoko, from the Office of the Public Defender. Tunji was accustomed to and competent at handling murder trials but wasn’t prepared for one as high profile as Blessing’s—one that was said to be all over the Internet and labeled a case of trial by media. His office didn’t have the wherewithal to counteract the public’s impression of Blessing, while he didn’t have the sensitivity to deal with her. He found her cold and thought that may have put off the judge, a woman who had previously shown more leniency in sentencing convicted murderers. Enitan said “numb” was a better assessment of Blessing’s state of mind, but, on second thought, she was unsure. Did the media attention detach Blessing from the trial, or was the experience for her rather like being the star of a reality show?

“Auntie Isioma even promised to help me clean up my image,” Blessing says.

“That’s fine,” Enitan says, keeping a straight face. “But try not to do or say anything that will make you look bad.”

Why the sudden interest in Blessing? she wonders. Why the poking around and offering PR services? Isioma is not wishy-washy that way. She is intentional—not just about her associations but about her appearance, and her accent, which may give unsuspecting listeners the impression she was educated in England. She is particularly shrewd when it comes to her career.

Enitan isn’t surprised that Isioma came all the way here. Isioma would want to appear serious about her mentoring project, unlike the ladies who launch. They won’t cross the bridge from Lagos Island to visit any prisoner. Enitan is sure they’re happy to be identified as mentors, regardless. They patronize women like Isioma who have time for them and begrudge anyone who willfully refuses to look up to them. Enitan could easily be part of their social circle, so they can’t accuse her of envy, which is their go-to defense, but she does sometimes wonder if she’s that different from them.

Blessing, she suspects, is merely trying to get back at her for skipping her Christmas visit by mentioning Isioma, yet she finds it hard to pay her no mind. She cares about Indigenes—not to the extent that she would about a close relative or friend, but in the same way. She excuses their flaws and hopes they do hers. Sometimes she withholds opinions, so as not to upset them. She won’t lie to them, though, and makes sure she researches their cases and meets them several times beforehand to see if they can develop a rapport. Inmates are liable to mistrust her because of her background. She can’t bring herself to deal with convicts who have murdered children, and she must believe they murdered in self-defense. She still doesn’t know what to make of the fact that they’ve all killed men. None of them is given to misandry, and she would be put off by that. As for their fatal acts of violence, she is just grateful she’s never been in a position that would cause her to take another person’s life.

Blessing has been having a difficult time with other inmates since her sentencing. She rows with them and resents having to settle disagreements in the Love Garden. She is especially annoyed by an older inmate who she says has it in for her.

“Did she tell you that?” Enitan asks, worried that Blessing may be at risk of physical harm.

Blessing raises her voice. “No, but she’s always trying to provoke me!”

They get the attention of the warder, who has so far seemed indifferent to their conversation. Enitan wonders if Blessing spoke loudly on purpose.

“How?” she asks.

Blessing says the older inmate calls her Slay Queen, not as a compliment, and stares her down whenever they pass each other.

“Just ignore her,” Enitan says, even though she would find it aggravating to be in that position.

“I do,” Blessing says. “I’ve left it in God’s hands. It’s God that will judge her.”

Blessing is Catholic and practices her religion faithfully these days. She prays with rosary beads and recites novenas. Enitan would be amused by the irony of her belief in divine justice if the circumstances were appropriate.

Her session is over. Blessing leaves the reception area, and Augustina struts in flexing her biceps. Augustina, a thirty-five-year-old Ibibio woman, is a table tennis champ and belongs to a self-appointed group that breaks up dorm fights. She wears a sleeveless muscle T and knee-length shorts and has a new buzz cut.

“Big Sis!” she says.

“Tin Tin,” Enitan says. “Na you be dis?”

“Na me, o,” Augustina says, rubbing her head. “I shaved de whole Goddam.”

Enitan laughs. Augustina had an Afro the last time Enitan saw her. A popular woman, she alleviates the atmosphere in the reception area, drawing fond glances from other inmates and curious stares from their visitors. Unfazed, she sits down with her legs wide apart and grins. “How body?”

“I dey,” Enitan says. “How you dey?”

Augustina immediately divulges that she’s been through early menopause and describes her symptoms in pidgin—her mind no rest, her body dey sweat for night, and she no fit sleep well.

“No bring me sanitary towel again,” she says. “I no need am. It be like say every tin done dry finish.”

“Eh-yah,” Enitan says.

She relies on sounds when she can’t find the right words to express sympathy. She welcomed menopause when it began for her. If nothing else, it gave her an excuse to be less accommodating.

Augustina killed her husband, an alcoholic who habitually beat her up because she couldn’t have children. The day she told him she was leaving him, he smashed a beer bottle against the wall, with the intention of scarring her face so no other man would want her. She struggled with him and he pushed her to the floor. She grabbed a shard of the beer bottle and jabbed him in the chest before he could cut her. The man bled to death on their way to the nearest hospital. Augustina said it wasn’t her fault there were none where they lived.

After her, Enitan sees other Indigenes who are serving life terms and have over the years found ways to carry on. She can’t fathom how they’re able to, and with spirit that astounds her.

Her final session is with Sikira, who is forty-four but could pass for a sixty-year-old because of her pronounced air of solemnity. A Lagos Muslim, Sikira wears a black boubou and scarf. In her spare time, she braids hair and teaches Koranic lessons. Inmates come to her for advice. They call her Auntie SK. The kind of Yoruba woman to expect a great deal of respect from her juniors, she shows as much of it to her seniors and goes through the whole rigmarole of curtsying and exchanging formal greetings with Enitan.

“Ẹku ọjọ mẹta,” she says. Quite an age.

“Ọjọ kan pẹlu,” Enitan replies with a smile. And a day.

Sikira never has much to say about prison life but gives updates on her siblings and parents. Her father has been ill, and her siblings are having trouble paying for his treatment.

“Sometimes I think I’m lucky to be here,” she concludes. “At least I don’t have to think about food and rent.”

“Don’t say that,” Enitan mumbles. “Don’t say that at all.”

She can’t always make comforting sounds. She can’t afford to give financial assistance whenever an Indigene tells her about their family problems either, so she offers prayers, to which Sikira repeatedly answers, “Amin.”

Sikira killed her landlord. She owed him rent and when he knocked on her room door one evening she opened it to find him standing there with an iron pole in his hand. She darted back in, and he chased after her. An elderly man, he was known for threatening his tenants but never once followed through. Sikira claimed she wasn’t aware of this. She grabbed the pole from him and banged him on the head with it. He collapsed, and no one in the entire building could resuscitate him.

Always considerate, Sikira attempts to end Enitan’s visit earlier than planned.

“You look tired today, ma,” she says, lowering her gaze.

“Do I?” Enitan asks, with a smile.

Sikira briefly studies her face sideways. “Yes.”

“I’m fine,” Enitan says. “Maybe it was the traffic on my way.”

“Coming here can’t be easy.”

“It wasn’t always this bad.”

“My family, too, complain. I tell them not to bother.”

“Why?” Enitan asks. “If they want to see you, let them.”

She would like to add that Sikira shouldn’t worry so much about her family, but Sikira might take offense and, though polite, won’t back down if she believes she’s right. Sikira won’t even accept she deserves company for a few more minutes and continues to persuade her to leave. Enitan finally gives in, and they both stand up.

“Send your family my greetings,” she says.

“I will,” Sikira says, with a curtsy.

Enitan thanks the warder and strides out of the reception area as if it’s possible to escape what she’s heard. She isn’t as tired as she appears. She walks regularly for exercise and has more stamina than she had when she started Indigene, but her visits to Kirikiri no longer make sense. The traffic will be worse on her way back, and by the time she gets home, she will have spent more hours on the road than she has here.

SEFI ATTA is the author of the novels Everything Good Will Come, Swallow, A Bit of Difference, The Bead Collector, and The Bad Immigrant; a collection of short stories, News from Home; Sefi Atta: Selected Plays; and a children’s book, Drama Queen. She has received several literary awards, including the 2006 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the 2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. "Visit is Free" is adapted from her forthcoming novella Indigene.