slept in a cell with 70 people - Kwaw kese shares prison experience

Hip-Life musician, Kwaw kese, has thrown light on
his experience at the Kumasi Central Prison, where
he was remanded for allegedly possessing
narcotics.
The award-winning artiste shared his experience
Tuesday on Accra-based Joy FM's 'Super Morning
Show'.
Read Kwaw Kese's account below:
"I slept in a cell with about 70 people. This was like
a normal single room. There were only 3 beds
which were reserved for the cell leaders. We lie on
the floor, packed like yam. They will ask if you
want to sleep the yam sleeping or the monkey
sleeping.
With the yam sleeping, they are packed like
sardines. The monkey sleeping, you sleep with your
legs on your chest.
People have done that for so many years and they
are just there, on remand. The toilet is in the centre
of the room. It showed me something - the people
are so clean; the room didn't smell.
In the night, people ease themselves and at 6 am in
the morning, the toilet is opened. Imagine about 800
people in the remand prison using only 4 toilet
facilities.
It is full to the brim and faeces fall on the floor.
Someone pounds it like fufu. This is the same place
that people sit to cook and bath. It’s crazy. It was
there that I realized that I am in a different planet;
the way human beings are being treated.
There is this banku that is dropped in the sun and if
you like it, you go for it.
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you see that the people who go for this food are
hopeless.
The soup will come in the next 3 or 4 hours. I don’t
know why it’s this way. If you are being paid Ghc
1.40 a day, what do you do with that? Not all of
them come out and get the chance to come on
radio and tell their story.
This is inhumane. I spoke to someone who was 70.
He said he was going from the farm and saw police
chasing some people like they were smoking and
the police ambushed them. He doesn't know his
offence. He has been there for 3 months.
Some people have been there for 3-4 years
because they don’t have anyone to take them to
court. The prisons are like a hospital. Anybody can
end up there. If it’s meant for us, we should feel a
bit comfortable when we are there. Ibrahim Adam
and former president Kufuor have been there
before.
Not everybody in prison is a bad person or a
criminal. It’s a correctional facility, not a dungeon. If
it turns into a dungeon, it may come back to haunt
us.
I want to share love with the prisoners on
Valentine's Day and put smiles on their faces. I
want everybody to come on board.
They need us. People should think about this and
try to support and make the prisoners happy
people. To the youth in Ghana, I would like to say,
focus on whatever field they are in. do whatever
you can to stay out of prison."