Recurrent Jail Breaks in Cameroon: a threat to social peace

Courtesy - Harry Ndienla Yemti

Population attributes it to corruption and poor working condition of warders

The recent jail break at the New Bell Prison in Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital simply came to expose the problems besetting Cameroonian prisons which are as old as the lifespan of the prisons. From infrastructure to management, both weaknesses have been largely held responsible for the recurrent jail breaks around the country, with social peace threatened when armed bandits break jail making away with weapons belonging to warders. From Tchollire, Mantoum and Yoko, passing through kondengui, Bamenda and the Sa’a prisons, where there
has been recurrent jail break of recent, the most severe of the problem is infrastructure. Take for
example the Bamenda main prison where since its creation the fence around the place has never been completed. The sparsely doned iron bars that deter delinquent inmates from fleering have all rotted. The Buea production prison has simply been reduced to a dungeon with all the trades usually offered inmates abandoned. And just like in Bamenda, inmates in Douala have taken advantage of the dwarfed fence and degrading surroundings to stage their escape. Even the
much dreaded kondengui prison in Yaounde was so vulnerable that it only took courageous guards to deter escapees

Working Conditions for Warders
The other problem which seems to be splitting hair is the working conditions of warders. How can one imagine that a prison guard in a city like Douala or even Yaounde, the national capital with a wife and children has to go through thick and thin to survive FCFA 45.000 upon recruitment? One of them even confessed with tears that he was retiring on FCFA 80.000 after
30 years of service. This kind of situation including their poor working conditions make them easy target for those who may buy their way out of Jail. Like Yoko in the centre province recurrent jailed breaks have also been linked to corruption.

Although the situation in Yoko seems complicated the guards in Douala might have gone down cap in hand to salvage the situation. After one of the breaks at New Bell Prison the
superintendent blamed the warders for not firing even a shot to alert the local population for an immediate manhunt of the escapees. Consequently talks are rife in town and especially these areas on how bandits who were serving jail terms from 25 years and above would be a serious threat to the local population and social peace.

The two escapees who were arrested after the last jail break in Douala made confessional statements declaring that plans to free themselves were hatched weeks back. Thus it somehow becomes glaring rightly or wrongly that their action got the blessings from the house. The other problem that looks more of a quest of morals is the congested nature of the prisons and the long
periods taken to render justice to inmates. It is no news that of prisoners in Cameroon’s 70
prisons are awaiting trail.

The New Bell prison which was originally meant for 700 people, for example, is today home to more than 3500 inmates. The same holds for other prisons around the country. The uncomfortable situations in which they find themselves always push them to long for freedom. The worrisome problem in all these is that government always appears to have solutions which are never concrete.

When some 300 out of the close to 3500 warders, according to Amadou Ali, the country’s Minister of Justice, embarked on a strike action in early January 2007 to press for better working conditions the Minister instead applied draconian sanctions (arresting, dismissing and questioning some of the prison guards) which never solve the problems. The Secretary of State for Penitentiary Administration, Emmanuel Ngafeeson who after the kondengui incident which occurred sometime last year promised to decongest the prison is yet to inform the nation on what has been dine so far because almost a year after nothing concretely seems to have been done.

With the constant jail breaks around the country it is not certainly overstatement to say Cameroonians might get up one day to find the cells of one or more of its prisons empty with the accompany consequences on social peace and order.