By Markson Omagor
TRUE LIFE STORY
As we tried to settle down to normal business, a few days later, the Monsoon winds struck again! This time, because of the attempted escape, the Ward Leader was stripped off his responsibilities and so was the RP Lock-Up Block D. He was immediately replaced by the RP Lock-Up Hospital, a one Odeke. For two days, it was so until one morning, the new overall RP Commander came together with his predecessor to my work place-Printing.
They came directly to where I was seated and greeted me. After the greetings, Tom, the outgoing RP Commander overall, told his successor that I was the man. I was then asked if I could help as RP Lock-Up Hospital. Knowing the social perks that come along with being RP Lock-up, I accepted. The following day, I was presented to Chief Convicts for approval. He approved my appointment and that took me to the next phase of prison experience.
I was commanded to carry my possessions to Hospital Block where I would thereafter sleep. The Ward, I was taken to had Double-Decker beds for both recovering patients and leaders. Leaders were five in number and they occupied the two Double-Decker beds while the one single bed was the preserve of the Katikkiro. The difference between the Katikkiro’s bed and my decker being the extreme opposites was about 5 feet and the other decker being on the right wall side. The 5 feet was open space neatly laid with strawberry coloured mats. This as one would imagine was more space and luxury than I could have ever bargained for. That evening too, I entered my Ward at 7:00PM, my first ever, since my imprisonment.
On the 20th day of June, I had made a completion of my 150 days and was entering into my last 100 days of imprisonment and a host of many good tidings. It also marked my first two weeks as RP Lock-Up and in a Hospital environment.
The first week was largely an induction week. We were regularly three counting, One Afande, Tom, my predecessor and mentor and myself. I of course learnt quite easily. The arithmetic was the simpler part as it only involved the kind of quick mental work primary math’s teachers of our time were famous for. The week was more or less uneventful. Indeed there were times when Lock-Ups would fail but none of them arose from our side. I started to grow a lot of self-confidence and I think amongst the more experienced RPs and even the Afandes. To me, this was embarrassing to say the least. How could I be put on a weighing scale for a task academically pediatric?
Well in the second week, I was quietly weaned and left on my own as RP Lock-Up Hospital counting with whichever Afande would be posted to Hospital. I continued with even more reason to perform without blemish, and my ego grew. Not until one day, the first of my lapses and it was such an unfortunate coincidence. In Ward 10, where we always started from, there were 33 Inmates inside and I captured so. My Afande captured 31. I did not realise his mistake immediately as it was routine that we only compared notes after finishing counting as a counter-check.
We tallied the rest of the Wards well until we again got to Ward 2. There were two prisoners inside the Nurses’ room and I saw them. Inside the Ward were 17 but in capturing, I only captured 17 and forgot the two inside the Nurses Room. My Afande captured all the 19. The remaining two Wards, we again tallied. When therefore we compared the grand total, we were even at 133, so we thought we were okay- and this is the figure we presented to the Tally Center-our bosses. As it were, the Lock-Up failed, it was less by two. As it was the rule, we all had to go back and do a recount.
As usual, we started with Ward 10, and this time, Afande’s figure rose to 33. He then wondered where the other 2 prisoners emerged from but I told him I had had 33 even the first time. So then we quickly concluded that this was the source of the mistake. But then, there was another puzzle, how come our totals remained tallied?
We then cross-checked all our figures for all Wards and indeed when we reached Ward 2, there was another discrepancy. I was less by two. This explained the ugly coincidence where our totals were variously the same, yet wrong by the same degree. Ashamed, we took back our report with two up and gave an excuse. We lied to our superiors at the Tally Center that there were two prisoners in the theater room whom we had failed to see. The lie was bought but with strong warning to be more vigilant given the volatility of the Hospital setting.
