YouSayToo - Promote Blog

WHAT DOES PRISON LABOUR IN AFRICA MEAN

Is work for prisoners a privilege to save them from the demoralizing effects and misery of endless unoccupied hours? Is it something added to prison to make to make it harder and more unpleasant, or something, which should have a positive value as part of rehabilitation? Those magistrates who clung to sentences f hard labour doubtlessly look upon strenuous work as an additional punishment. This point of view is often widely as right and proper, but it ignores the fact that unwillingness to work is often one of the immediate causes of criminality. To send prisoners to the outside world, more convinced that labour is evil and to be avoided, is to confirm them in their old way of life. It has been said that the purpose of prison work in a program of rehabilitation is twofold; training for work and training by work. The prisoner, that is to say, needs to be trained in the habit of industry; but over and above this, the prisoner will gain immeasurable if it is possible to rouse in him the consciousness of self-mastery and of purpose that the completion of any worthwhile piece of work can give the doer. He may find a pride of achievement in something more satisfying, and more socially desirable, than crime. But these things can only come when the work itself has a purpose and demands an effort.

WHY INCONSISTENCY IN AFRICAN POLICY FORMULATION

Of all the banes confronting the economies of developing nations, not in the least, in point of candor, the fact of inconsistency in policy formulation. This inevitably flux in policy is not usually unconnected with the perpetually unstable government. Thus, a policy is dies with the exit of its proponent.
A seminal policy in Lagos state, Nigeria that may soon face extinction is the use of crash helmets and the unequivocal clamp down on illegal structures. This has no doubt engendered malice, backbiting and even open animosity towards the powers that be in the state. An in-depth venture into the claim of this policy will no doubt extricate the government from the acerbic criticism leveled against it .the need for demolition in Lagos cannot be over-emphasized. Indeed, it’s a step symptomatic of government’s foresight and spirited iconoclastic temper. The state has hitherto been unduly overcrowded, thus making life unbearable for residents and visitors. Land sellers and buyers are irredeemably way-ward that Lagos beach is ready to occupy a private estate of stinking rich millionaire. Lately, the state and its residents now heave a sigh of relief, as stumbling blocks are being bull-dozed. The fear as earlier pointed out is the threat on sustainability.

AFRICA AND WORLD POLITICS

Africa in a way corresponding to her vital statistics on the map of the world carries a question mark in her heart. This is a question within herself, and a question about her to the rest of the world. The reason for the question is that Africa is just passing through the birth-throes of a new life. She has suffered for centuries. Her illness has been written of as chronic and her sickness as sick as that unto death or, at best, something that would leave her more dead than alive. She has suffered so much because she has been callously and frequently raped and despoiled by the strong ones of this world who adepts in the art of benevolent exploitation and civilized savagery. Even now there are organs of her body, which are under torture and cruel assault, and consequently, she is still more or less a sick personality. Nevertheless, she is not without friends. There have been those who have been given their lives, their time, or their substance in order to heal her ‘open sore’, which have various manifestations. Such friends are still few and far between, and the quality of friendship is often a baffling question.

There are those who have graciously given her a place in the newly imagined ‘third world’ which stands in contrast to the ‘first world’ of Europe and the ‘second world’ of America. Even those are divided in their attitude towards her: should be accorded the title of corporate personality worthy in her own right to stand on equal footing with any other continent? Is she not still too immature or crude to be recognized fully as a sister continent? And her sons and daughters, whatever their education, achievement, or status, would they ever be admitted across the subtle but palpable line of demarcation which separates the elder (the stronger world) from the younger (the weaker world ‘coloured world’ ones)? One thing is certain is that while there are die-hard enemies of her life because they think that her death or chronic infantilism is of benefit to them, she is an unfailing fund of condescending patronage and generous patronage. Where she behaves her self according to prescription and accepts inferior position, benevolence, which becomes her poverty, is assured, and for this she shows her self deeply and humbly grateful. If for any reason she takes into her head to be self-assertive and claim footing a of equality, then she brings upon herself a frown; she is called names; she is persecuted openly or by indirect means; she is helped to be divided against herself.