Juliana Francis
When Yemi Taiwo got a job as a hairstylist in a barber shop, he danced for joy, thinking his luck was finally changing for the better.
Yemi, who was 20 years old then, worked for six months, but his boss didn’t pay him a dime. Angry and feeling cheated, he and his friends organised and poured salt into his master’s generator, rendering it useless.
The boss found out and before Yemi knew it, he had been arrested, arraigned and remanded in prison. He returned from prison, filled with anger and seeking vengeance. He felt that the only punishment suitable for his boss was death.
But his encounter with Grace Springs Rehabilitation Home (GSRH), running a diversion programme for problem children, made him change his plan.
The Executive Director of GSRH, Omolara Olawoyin, said that the programme was established “to prevent children offending and re-offending”. The programme is an alternative to traditional measures and punishments, such as the trial process, corporal punishment and custodian sentencing.
Recalling the genesis of his problem with his boss and his subsequent remand in prison, Yemi said it was while in prison he realised that nothing beats being a free person.
He said: “Prison was hell and many of the inmates attempted to ‘rape’ me. When I refused, I was starved of food.
“My arrest happened in 2017. I had worked for my boss for six months and he didn’t pay me. My monthly salary was N17,000 and it was because of me that customers trooped to his saloon. I grew up in that community and many people knew me. I complained to my mom, but she urged me to keep calm. I kept calm and worked an additional two months, he still didn’t pay me. I resigned.
“At that point, I was involved with a bad gang. We agreed in the gang that we should treat my master’s fuck up. I took a decision of pouring salt into his generator. He found out, but I don’t know how. He went to report me at Alakara Police Station. I told him at the station to use the money he owed me to fix his generator. I was detained for four days, arraigned and remanded in prison in Abeokuta, Ogun State, where I spent six months.”
Yemi also found out that his boss, aside from telling the police that he damaged his generator, also lied that the boy stole everything in his shop. Furthermore, police arrested, detained and arraigned Yemi in court without his mum being aware.
He said: “It was more than a month before my mum found out that I was in prison. I was taken back to Samuel Ilori Court at Ogba after six months in prison. It was the court which recommended me to GSRH. After a series of counselling, Grace Spring said I had an anger issue. Everything they said to me, I would respond in the affirmative. But all the time I was there, I was planning on how to kill my boss. Grace Spring people felt they were not getting across to me and intensified their efforts to ‘rescue’ me. One day, they asked me what was on my mind; I told them my plan was to kill my boss after I was done with my programme at the centre. They advised me against it, saying I would end up wasting my life and that I had a better future. I told them that my boss cheated me and I wouldn’t rest until I killed him. But after some months of being at that centre, everything about me changed. My life and orientation about everything changed!”
Yemi said he was not just angry with his boss for making him end up in prison; he was also feeling ashamed for people looking at him as a former convict.
Due to counselling, Yemi changed his bad ways and threw himself into his programme, fine-turning his barbing skill. He also learnt tailoring. After a year and six months of being counselled by GSRH, he graduated. Yemi turned out to be one of the best young people in GSRH and was retained as one of their workers. Today, he is one of those teaching other youngsters at GSRH on how to surmount their problems as troubled children and live a fulfilled life void of crime and conflict.
Two weeks ago, Yemi was among young people presented with work tools by GSRH.
He said: “My dream is to establish my own barber shop, but I don’t have the money. I can’t thank GSRH enough for changing my life.”
Speaking to youths, he said: “If you’re a youth and you’re in a gang member or doing something bad, please mend your ways. If I had followed my mother’s advice, I wouldn’t have gone to prison, but again, if I had listened to her, I never would have met GSRH and my life wouldn’t be this fulfilled. I believe everything happened because God designed it so.”
His grinning mum, Mrs. Remilekun Taiwo, said: “I will never forget how GSRH changed the life of my son. I thank God for everything. Yemi now listens to me and has also started taking care of me.”
Our reporter met him at Ilupeju, where other children, who had been with GSRH, were graduating.
Olawoyin said: “It is the graduation ceremony of children on the Diversion Community Rehabilitation Programme. This is the third graduation ceremony. The programme is for children in conflict with the law and at high risk of offending. The programme is for six months. At least nine children graduated today. We also provided tools for eight children who successfully completed their skill acquisition programme in their various communities. These include the past and present graduates. The most outstanding is Oluwakemi Musa.”
Who is this Oluwakemi Musa? On February 15, 2021, Oluwakemi got home for a change of clothes and found policemen waiting for her. Olawoyin said before then, Oluwakemi had been spending her days in the streets – hanging out with gangs, skipping classes, spending nights away from home and not disclosing her whereabouts to her mum.
When the policemen from Ilupeju Police Station came for her, following a complaint by her tired mother, the 16-year-old girl had thought it was a joke.
The officers had pre-arranged with her mum to take her to GSRH, where the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration with the Lagos State Ministry of Youths and Social Development, operate a six-month rehabilitation programme for children in conflict with the law for minor offences or at risk of re-offending.
In her six months at GSRH, Oluwakemi acquired basic communication skills, learnt resilience, became more self-aware and improved her relationships with people – especially her mother.
She recalled: “I changed my mobile phone number to cut off access to my street friends.”
Oluwakemi resumed her studies and basketball training, which had suffered during her time on the streets.
Her daily regime involves going to school and doing her homework, followed by tailoring lessons in the afternoon.
She said: “I have always wanted to learn tailoring but never had the opportunity.”
The programme has helped her realise that dream, and she now hopes to open a fashion outlet someday.
But perhaps her greatest accomplishment has been in basketball, as the home facilitated her return to active training at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos. The training location was quite a distance from GSRH, nonetheless, she kept her eyes on the ball, and it eventually paid off, as she was invited to join the national team representing Nigeria at the United Arab Emirates World Games in Abu Dhabi in 2019.
Her team also represented Nigeria at the Special Olympics Games in Chicago in 2019 and she was invited to Dublin to receive an award as the “Ambassador of Special Olympics Nigeria” in the same year.
She said: “I now know that every child living on the street carries some greatness waiting for the right opportunity to unfold. I want to use this opportunity to tell other children to change because wayward life is not good.”
Her mum, Mrs. Shade Musa, said: “I’m so proud and happy with the way Kemi has changed. In fact, her change is so amazing that I have now decided to refer a friend’s child to GSRH.”
Another graduand is 17-year-old Chidera Eloke, who is a senior secondary student (SS3). She said: “I live with my parents at Mushin. I was disobedient and was too lazy to go on errands. When I came to GSRH, I changed and began to listen to my parents. GSRH counselled us every day. Today, I’m so happy with myself and parents. I will never go back to being that stubborn and disobedient child. My advice to young people like me is to avoid moving with bad friends.”
Her mother, Rachel Eloke, said: “My heart is filled with joy because Chidera has truly changed. She can sew clothes now and even bake. There was a time she was so stubborn and very disobedient, that I took to beating her, thinking that was the solution and the way to change her. But GSRH has since made us to understand that flogging our children was child abuse. She has become focused and determined. She goes to school and when she returns, she would go to the centre. No matter what happens, she never missed going for her programme.”
Asked how Chidera came to be at GSRH, Rachel stated that concerned neighbours reported her to human rights activists, that she was abusing her daughter by flogging the girl incessantly.
She added: “When they came, they saw the welts on her body and threatened to arrest me. But I thank God today for how things turned out for us.”
All the graduating children were presented with working tools by GSRH commensurate with the vocation they learnt. Those who learnt shoe making were given filing machines; those who trained in tailoring were presented with sewing machines while barbers were given sterilising boxes.
First Published 2021
