My family and I lived in Accra New Town. Even though, the area we lived in is perceived to be associated with vandalism, and other social vices such as petty thievery and violence, our small family has always lived in quiet and relative peace.

In spite of the fact that we lived in poverty laced with stark illiteracy, I comported myself and tried to stay out of trouble as much as I could.

My mother did her best to provide for our needs by doing petty trading, as we had to grow up without our father, who died after a short illness when I was only 11 years old. To support our mother as the oldest of four brothers, I did some menial jobs like carrying loads for people and assisting a friend in his corn mill to earn what extra income I could to supplement what mother had to provide.

Often she would tell me, “Kojo, you are the older of your brothers, please stay out of trouble and set a good example for your brothers. Never forget to keep your distance from those boys. I hope you know what I mean?” She would counsel.

‘Those boys’ are the known criminals in the area. That’s how she refers to them each time she held her long counseling sessions with us.

My mother was right and I knew it, because some of the boys in the area were involved in petty stealing, drunkenness and drugs. My mother made it clear to us that we have no father around to help us and therefore, we were to make sure we didn’t get into trouble.

I really didn’t take my mother serious because as I always thought, “how could I live as a young person without making friends? That’s impossible!”

At 23 years, I thought I should be left alone to take my destiny into my own hands.

And so when Bashiru, who was such a nice guy became my friend, I simply did not take into consideration my mother’s warning not to fall into bad company. Our friendship dragged on smoothly for three months. We played football together, went to the field to watch football matches and sometimes went hunting for rats together.

That day was a Friday. The sun was up and the weather was sweltering. Bashiru approached me with a story. His uncle with whom he lived at Nima has been complaining of missing items and money from the house. But he consistently denied it, because his cousin, the uncle’s son also lived with them.

One morning the uncle called him and asked about his missing GH¢40.
“Tell me Bashiru, who took that money I kept in the wardrobe?” He asked.

“What?” Bashiru blurted out in response. “Do you want to say I have stolen your money?” He queried the uncle.
“Of course I suspect you,” the uncle retorted.

The argument went on back and forth, until the uncle could not take it any more and he suggested that Basiru should leave the house because things were getting out of hand.

When he finished telling me his pathetic story, I felt so sorry for him and I thought I should help him. I asked him, “so where do you intend to stay?”
“I have no where to go as such,” he told me. And he went on to ask if I could help him get somewhere to live even if temporary.

I shared a room with two of my brothers, and I thought that being boys, he could share the space with us.

Meanwhile, he never told me about what he did for a living. And I didn’t ask him either, because I didn’t want to appear intrusive. However, he told me that he did “connections” to survive. Whatever that meant was of little importance to me at that time. He also said the uncle was planning to send him to take up an apprenticeship in tailoring when the incident occurred.

Not long after he had moved in to live with us, my friend started bringing in valuable items like sound systems, wall clocks, and sometimes clothes and cooking utensils. He brings these at dawn and takes them out in the mornings to sell, and he doesn’t return till late in the night. Anytime I would question him, he would say it is “connection”.

Some neighbours who noticed it reported the development to my mother. She called me and warned me about the information she was getting about my friend.

“I have told you to be careful about these boys, as you know; we have no one to help us in times of trouble.” She pleaded.

But as usual, I took her warnings as one of those worries of old age and ignored her.

Three weeks after Bashiru has been living with us he brought his friend around. Tanko, he told me helps him to do some of his ‘connections’. But the rate at which Bashiru’s ‘connections’ were going alarmed me a bit, but I was so childish to have swallowed everything he told me on simple trust.

But then, it happened. The least I could ever expect struck, when I was not prepared for it. It was early Wednesday morning, and the time was 4:00am. I heard a hard knock on the door. I jumped onto my feet. My heart began beating fast, and beads of sweat rolled down my forehead at that time of the morning. Fear gripped me.
The knock was repeated, but this time a croaky voice followed, “open the door quickly”, it said.

I was scared so I tapped Bashiru, who was fast asleep. I woke him up and asked him to open the door to whoever was there. Only the two of us were in the room because my younger brothers had decided to spend the night with our mother.

He opened the door, and a mean looking, gun clutching policeman grabbed him by the neck and pulled him out.

I was so shaken that I sat glued to my bed. I was confused and could hardly mutter a word. It all happened so fast that I hardly had anytime to think.

Three other policemen followed into the room, they grabbed me, and immediately handcuffed us. I didn’t know what was going on even after I was handcuffed, until we were dragged into the open. From a corner of the house, I saw Tanko and another young man I have never seen before handcuffed together. Then it struck me hard in the face. We have been arrested! But for what? I did not know.

We were bundled into a police van and driven to the Central Police Station.

My mother, on hearing the case rushed to see me in cells at the station. Some neighbours were with her, just a handful of them. As soon as our eyes met, tears gushed out of my eyes. I noticed that her eyes were reddened and swollen. I knew immediately that she had been weeping when she heard I had been arrested.

I felt guilty for putting her through this. My heart sank and I felt pain surge through my entire body. “Oh God,” I cried, “what have I put myself into?”

The police did their investigations, and I was charged with abetment of crime and put before a Magistrate’s Court. After a traumatic six months trial, I was found guilty and sentenced to six years imprisonment in hard labour. Bashiru got ten years, and Tanko got eight years, both of them for stealing.

I finished serving my term at the Nsawam Medium Security Prison in 2003. I am grateful to God that I survived the harrowing experience of life in prison, and I have since resolved to take heed to good advice from my mother and any other well meaning person, no matter how unwise I think the advice sounds.


By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

Email: edogbevi@hotmail.com