Standard Team
29 April 2008
Nairobi — Gunshots were fired inside the Kamiti Maximum Prison as warders tried to contain a near-riot on day four of the crisis in jails.
In Kisumu, two inmates died at Kodiaga and Kibos prisons as they were being taken to hospital for treatment.
It was a hectic and chaotic day for warders and prisoners at Kamiti Prison yesterday - the former protesting against poor working and living conditions and the latter demanding to be taken to courts for the hearing of their cases.
Sources at the prison said an inmate was shot and seriously wounded after a warder ordered them to stop fighting and return to their cells.
A contingent of the dreaded paramilitary officers, the General Service Unit, was deployed to man the perimeter of the jail just in case prisoners attempted to escape.
The chaos at the prison was so serious that the Commissioner of Prisons himself, Mr Gilbert Omondi, visited in an attempt to stop the protests and riots.
He was a besieged man as curious journalists demanded answers to issues raised by prisoners. A group of death row convicts turned rowdy as Omondi was addressing them. They challenged the commissioner to address the plight of the warders.
They also demanded the release of the Kamiti Prison officer in charge, Mr Peter Njuguna Ngugi. He was charged alongside a Deputy Commissioner of Prisons, Mr John
Isaac Odongo, who is also the Commandant of the Prisons Training College, among others. (See separate story on page
The prison officers pleaded "Not guilty" to charges of incitement and neglect of duty at the Nairobi Chief Magistrate's Court, 16 lawyers offered to represent them for free.
Over at Jogoo House, the Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, bent over backwards from the previous day's hard line and offered the warders a Sh5,000 monthly allowance each.
This was a victory for the warders because they boycotted work at the weekend over the allowance, saying their counterparts in the police force were receiving it but they had been left out.
Kalonzo also announced that the Sh10,000 stipend for the warders who had helped beef up security during the post-election chaos would also be paid. Again, other security forces were paid the allowance in February, but prison officers were left out - a second victory for the warders.
The other sticking issue for the prison staff is housing. Images of shacks and hovels that litter prisons and are home to warders have driven home - more than anything else - the inhumane conditions under which prison staff live and work.
Warders continued to rubbish and dismiss a committee Kalonzo set up at the weekend to look into their woes. Former Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Moody Awori, will chair it. Members include former Commissioner of Prisons, Mr Abraham Kamakil.
The prison staff say Awori and Kamakil have little to offer because they have been at the helm and things did not change. Ironically, Awori has been credited with the reforms in prisons and opening them up.
But to the warders this is the problem - it is their view that the former VP improved life for prisoners, not warders.
But in an apparent response to the raging hostility that has greeted the composition of the team, Kalonzo yesterday announced that the committee would be expanded to include unions and other key players.
The VP, however, warned that disciplinary action would be taken against officers who had defied lawful orders or incited colleagues to violence.
The effect of the standoff in prisons began to bite yesterday, with courts being affected in many parts of the country. Warders' work boycott slowed down the ferrying of remandees to courts for the hearing of their cases.
It was not clear by last night whether normalcy would return to the jails following Kalonzo's announcement that the prison staff would be paid the Sh10,000 post-election chaos stipend and Sh5,000 risk allowance.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 The East African Standard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
The situation of the warders is acknowledged by all to be worse than that of the IDP's. The leaders who seek to have the situation resolved after years and years of neglect by successive governments should not be treated as criminals. They were called to a meeting trap and betrayed by the usual traitor. They should be released in recognition of the gross missmanagement and lack of proper responsibility of government in this sector. If all are equal then all should receive fair pay and fair housing, not delapidated places worse than slums, so the suspended commanders should be freed reinstated and brought in to contribute to the solution of the problems. NO PERSON SHOULD BE PERSECUTED FOR SEEKING A MORE DIGNIFIED TREATMENT IN HIS OR HER WORKPLACE. Does government want to tell the nation that the warders are subhuman?????????????? THEY SHOULD BE REINSTATED
God forbid this be not incitement from politicians as an expanded war on the pecking order! Remember the unresolved "prison break" from Naivasha maximum prison during the height of the 2007 Elections! And only in Kenya do the "displined forces" become indisplined and get away with it.The word "mutiny" now means different things.
Then prisoners are taking sides, some demanding the release of a certain warder.In turn,some warders are demanding sacking of their boss.And then two Kenyans shot dead taking civilian clothes to a prisoner in Naivasha maximum prison.Then, all of a sudden, warders discover Uncle Mood only took care of prisoners, not them, but all along, none of them raised the issues when Uncle was busy with prison reforms "for prisoners only", yet those (now) dilapidated houses have been in existence since the colonial days...Strange happenings in Kenya indeed.