I stand solitary inside the walls of Makurdi prison, my eyes blinking as I pick the rays of the mid-morning sun. The three young men behind the menacing bars are in their early twenties, shuffling, resigned to their fate. They clutch their Bibles and peer at me suspiciously. I swallow hard. My body is in spasms. I try to make sense of everything around me.
I had asked if they had any needs.
“We don’t need anything,” one of them says in a near whisper behind bars. “Just Bibles will do.”
I blink back the tears. As a mum, I try hard not to break down in tears. They are behind bars for different crimes committed, some of which I cannot remember. But they are not ordinary prisoners. They are death row inmates – young, heartbroken, sad.
It has been nearly ten years since that scene played out before my eyes. I was speechless and shaking inside. As a member of the National Prison Decongestion Committee, I had gone to Makurdi prison as part of my assignment. Death row inmates remind us of our many freedoms, which we take for granted.
Last week, eight of nine death row inmates in Indonesia including four Nigerians were executed for drug offences. Their families and governments spent the better part of the last one month in the public space pleading, appealing, calling on our collective emotions. The death of one is the death of us all. We participated in their plea, we cried privately and publicly, we followed with bated breath. It was a universal event, one that reached to our depths, our humanity, our laws, our sovereignties. While the families did not plan it to be a media event, that’s what it became and understanding the power of the media, they used it to beg for mercy, their tears, their faces on the biggest news networks worldwide.
In the end, it was execution by firing squad; coffins, mangled bodies and broken families. A female relation sat mum beside a white coffin in a bus as it drove through the city to fetch a much-beloved son.
And you think you have a problem? You think because a neighbour does not like you it is a huge problem. You think because you did not get a promotion it’s a problem. You did not pass an exam, it is a problem?
There is no bigger test of faith, no challenging place for the living than the place of the end, the thoughts of facing death. In the case of some of the Indonesian nine, death and its prospects had been on their minds for ten years.
At this time, your neighbour is minuscule; it does not matter if you never passed an exam; a promotion does not even count.
Our faiths are tested every day by the many things that confront us, the many persons that try to unhinge us who know very well that we have wronged no one. That’s the world and it’s not always fair. Betrayals, high forms of treachery, lies, deceit, corruption of the mind and body, meanness, pettiness, cheating and in many cases, brutal physical harm. These are the ones you take to the Lord and the small voice of the spirit says to you, “Be still for I am the Lord your God.”
Christians understand that our salvation comes from the betrayal of Jesus and understand that betrayals will always come but once you are standing with God, with Jesus whom we emulate, the sun always comes.
But the biggest test of faith is when you are told you will die tomorrow by any means, firing squad, lethal injection. This was the fate of our forefathers who lived daily by the threat of death. One of the Indonesian nine married his girlfriend two days before his passing. The grief, the love at that ceremony! The last moments of laughter!
I shall not moralize about death sentences here or whether it serves as a deterrent or not. I shall not join issues with Indonesia; every nation has its laws clearly spelt out. Should someone who has spent ten years in jail making restitution still pay the final price? I cannot answer that question. There is also the perspective of families of drug addicts, the wasted lives, the vegetables that drug addicts become. They are a sorry sight. They are the living dead. This is not a blame-game piece. It is a piece about humanity, faith and whether our various problems as living beings can ever be compared to the emotions of those staring death in the face.
They chanted Christian songs to the very end. I hope they have found peace. As for the rest of us, may we find peace and always be contributors to peace and not contributors to other people’s unhappiness. May your problems never overwhelm you. Amen.
Eugenia Abu
