The all-women law firm helping prisoners get justice in Nigeria
© Nosmot Gbadamosi/ Al Jazeera
Lagos, Nigeria - On a breezy February morning at the height of the dry season, Oluyemi Orija cranked down her car window and turned up the speakers, leaving trails of Jailer by Nigerian singer Aṣa in the warm air.
It was a fitting but ironic choice of song as she drove south towards Lagos State Ikoyi Prison with three members of Headfort Foundation - an all-women law firm - in the backseat.
The prison was 15 minutes away and a world apart from Awolowo Road, an affluent stretch the 31-year-old criminal lawyer was cruising through. Luxury shop fronts displayed designer dresses while curb-side juice bars pumped out jazz.
"We are going into hell," Orija said. Seated beside her, I had volunteered with her team for the day to collect prisoner testimonies.
"The facility is built for 800, and 3,000 people are using it ... we had one client defecate himself because he couldn't access the toilet," she explained, her eyes focused on the road ahead. "The congestion leads to a lot of communicable diseases."
Earlier, in November 2019, on an afternoon visit without Headfort, I had glimpsed the blackboard inside the prison controller's office. It listed the total number of prisoners in each cell - usually overcrowded barred rooms with hundreds of people sleeping together on the floor. One cell had 1,065 inmates sharing. In December, five people were fatally electrocuted because a cell meant for 35 was accommodating 140.
Once every few months, volunteers from the non-profit organisation Orija founded in 2018 collect the cases of poor inmates who have spent months, sometimes years, in jail without trial. They provide free legal services in one of the toughest judicial systems in the world.
Read the full article on Al Jazeera.
