Riot At Nsawam Prisons
Chaos was averted last Saturday at the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons during a roll-call, a situation which held up visitors to the facility who had turned up at the time.
Reliable information reaching DAILY GUIDE deflates an earlier version which sought to explain that it was a clash between Christian and Muslim inmates.
The source explained that following a request by an inmate for the recitation of the Quran at the mosque, a religious ritual which involves the reading of the scripture as a form of worship and prayers to God, an Imam, also an inmate, went round at about 6am to make an announcement to that effect.
But before he could accomplish the mission, it was time for the routine roll-call to check the numbers at about 6.30am and not being to continue, he told another inmate to tell his colleagues at their block.
Unfortunately, one of the elevated inmates known as Black Coats, whose duty is to enforce discipline, queried the Imam for ignoring the roll-call bell.
The Imam reportedly asked him whether he had forgotten about him, to which the Black Coat said, 'Who are you? Are you God?'
The Imam responded by telling the Black Coat that 'I did not say so.'
A certain Maxwell Owusu, the leader of the Black Coats, ordered the Imam and the subordinate Black Coat to appear before him. When they turned up and narrated what happened, another inmate, Michael Nyevor, slapped the Imam from behind.
DAILY GUIDE has gathered not even warders are allowed to beat up inmates and so for a colleague inmate to do so was unthinkable.
The matter got to the notice of the chief warder who ordered them to appear before him, and there too, the Imam was slapped again but he was said to have refused to retaliate.
The Imam was made to write a statement about the incident following which the chief warder who ordered that the Imam be locked up, an order which infuriated both Christian and Muslim inmates who have never liked the conduct of the Black Coats.
Confusion erupted when the angry inmates began expressing their disapproval about the decision of the chief warder to have the Imam locked up.
But for the intervention of the second-in-command at the facility who ordered the release of the Imam, after a ten-minute detention in the cell, matters would have gotten to a head.
ASP Courage Atsem, Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Prisons Service, in a sharp rebuff, said the situation was immediately controlled.
According to him, there was a quarrel between a Muslim and a Christian inmate but he did not go into the details.
Attempts to reach Ben Lartey, the Deputy Director of Prisons in charge of the facility, proved futile.
BY Rocklyn Antonio revolt