Talent behind bars

When Dr Willy Munyoki Mutunga was sworn in as the 17th Chief Justice of Kenya a fortnight ago, the hopes and expectations his rise to office carry reverberated well beyond the walls of State House Nairobi, where the 65-year-old took oath.

The arrival of Dr Mutunga — and that of the Supreme Court that he launches in his tenure — poured fresh hope inside the high walls of the notorious Kamiti Maximum Prison, the address of Kenya’s condemned criminals.

And the fact that his radical political views of the 1980s earned him tenancy at Kamiti, along with other fighters of the “second liberation,” makes Dr Mutunga a much-looked-up-to figure by most of the 3,229 occupants of this tarnished Kiambu County residence.

Among them is 35-year-old former Mathare United Football Club central defender Tedium Roger Leneni Mzungu, better known as “Teddy” to fellow hardcore inmates.

Teddy, a tall, brown, accomplished footballer — elegant on the pitch and composed off it — previously featured for former Kenyan Premier League champions Utalii Football Club before his big switch to Mathare United.

He has been at Kamiti for 11 years now, on death row. A senior resident magistrate at Kiambu, G M Njuguna, sentenced him and a co-accused, Peter Mwangi Kang’ethe, to death after finding them guilty of robbery with violence, an offence the court said they committed on July 4, 2000.

The pair’s appeals were dismissed on August 21, 2003 by Mr Justice Msagha Mbogholi and Mr Justice J J Mutitu.

Teddy (the first appellant) and Kang’ethe (second appellant) sought redress a second time, but while the latter earned a reprieve on a technicality, the three-judge Court of Appeal bench ruling that he was wrongfully denied an opportunity to cross-examine his co-accused, Teddy was sent back to face the gallows.

Judges Riaga Omollo, Philip Waki, and William Shirley Deverell said in their ruling: “We think that going merely by the recorded evidence, there was abundant evidence upon which the appellants could have been, and were in fact, convicted.

“The second appellant is lucky to escape due to the serious mistake made by the trial magistrate in not affording the second appellant the right to cross-examine the first appellant.

“The second appellant is, we repeat, lucky to have the benefit of the trial magistrate’s failure to allow him to cross-examine the first appellant, and we accordingly allow his appeal, quash his conviction, set aside the sentence of death, and order that he be released from prison forthwith unless he is held for some other lawful cause.”

While Kang’ethe celebrated the June 8, 2007 ruling, Teddy went back to Kamiti, any hopes he had of being a free man again going up in smoke.

But the 35-year-old is not about to give up and the “re-branding” of Kenya’s Judiciary, highlighted by the arrival of Dr Mutunga and the Supreme Court, offers him a fresh glimmer of hope.

“I know I will overcome one day,” a composed Teddy said in a rare interview inside the Kamiti Prison after captaining his team of inmates to a dramatic 2-1 victory over the Nairobi West Remand Prison in the final of a tournament organised by Ms Margaret Wanini Kireri, a senior assistant commissioner of Prisons, just over a week ago.

“That’s life, and nothing is permanent. The setting up of the Supreme Court offers me fresh hope and the changes in the Judiciary mean things will now get better,” he adds.

Teddy says if he could turn back the clock, he would do things differently. “If I could hold time and let the 11 years I have been in Kamiti pass, I would avoid some of the wrong things that I did and concentrate on my football career.”

The centre-back, who, as a free man, played alongside the likes of the current Sofapaka FC coach Francis Kimanzi and Mathare United manager Salim Ali at United, regrets that it was bad company and the struggle to survive that led him to a gang.

“Things were not working right for me at the time and it was all about peer pressure.

“I regret because I’ve lost a lot that I had in my football talent, especially now that Kenyan football has improved a great deal and some players have joined the professional ranks like McDonald Mariga (Inter Milan and Dennis Oliech (Auxerre).

“I feel bad because my dream now has to wait and I cannot think of football again. But I know one day, one time, God will hear my cry.”

Despite facing an uncertain future behind bars, Teddy and his fellow inmates can still afford a smile, thanks to the effects of the prison reform programme that was rolled out in 2001.

Inmates are encouraged to be involved in leisure and sporting activities, something that has given Teddy a chance to refresh his above-average footballing skills.

“This is the first time in my 11 years here that we have played an inter-prisons football tournament at Kamiti,” he says after lifting the glittering trophy that he later proudly takes around the dreaded cells at Kamiti to show off to fellow inmates.

“Such tournaments should become an annual event and we need more uniforms, playing boots, and footballs.” The playing field at Kamiti is a treacherous, bare ground, good for six-a-side football at best.

“When this prison was constructed in the 1950s, the colonialists never gave a thought to recreation. We hope that someday we will get modern prisons,” says, Mr George Diang’a, the deputy head at Kamiti.

But until this happens, Teddy and his fellow footballers behind bars will have to make do with the nondescript playing conditions.

Like Teddy, Francis Mwangi Irungu, an inmate at the Nairobi West Prison, was an accomplished footballer when he found himself on the wrong side of the law.

Irungu captains his football team that finished third in the inaugural inter-prisons tournament, having beaten hosts Kamiti Medium Prison 2-0 in the play-off for third place.

“I played for Mathare Youth Sports Association’s under-12 team and was selected by coach Gabriel “Kingi” Njoroge to tour Norway with the team in 1995,” the 26-year-old Irungu, in for robbery, recalls.

“Playing football in prison helps us forget our stress for a while and maintain our fitness so that in case we get our freedom, we can still keep playing at the highest level.”

The prisoners’ sports programme is supported by Fr Grol’s Welfare Projects, initiated by Catholic priest Father Arnold Grol (now deceased), the founder of the Undugu Society.

It is a non-governmental organisation that is a trailblazer in caring for street families. The Grol programme is currently run by a Dutch lay missionary, Brother Linus Schoutsen, who left his base at Mosocho, Kisii to take over Fr Grol’s work.

A fortnight ago, Brother Linus was at the Lang’ata Women’s Prison where he joined the officer in charge, Mrs Margaret Ngunjiri, to watch an exhibition netball tournament between inmates.

“We have seen the positive impact of these sports tournaments,” says Mr Johnson Maundu, an administrator at Fr Grol’s Welfare Projects that has coined the phrase “Prisoners are People Too” for their initiatives in Kenyan prisons.

“Sports creates a level of respect between the inmates and officers and an inmate who is a good player will earn a lot of respect from fellow inmates and officers.

“Inmates are very resourceful people and we have people of all trades — players, coaches, referees — in prison, and even officers benefit from the resourcefulness of inmates.”

Mr Diang’a points out that if an inmate is a good player, this could mitigate in his or her favour when consideration is made for parole.
“We currently have a former Kamiti inmate playing in the Kenyan Premier League,” he adds.

Momentum in the current reforms in Nairobi’s prisons gathered with the arrival of Ms Kireri, a key reformist from Mombasa’s Shimo la Tewa Prison.

The Kenya High School alumnus, the first woman to head a men’s prison in Kenya, was in 2007 feted with the Urekebishaji Award by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights for her commitment to prison reforms.

And rightly so, because her concern for prisoners is obvious. “We want you to unleash the potential within yourselves,” Ms Kireri tells the excited footballing inmates after the Kamiti tournament’s final at the sparkling Kamiti Medium Security Prison, headed by another woman reformist, Ms Olivia Obell.

“When you were out there, you had no time. Now you can discover yourselves. You need to keep fit mentally and physically,” Ms Kireri adds.

Teddy could not agree more. His parting shot is to any young person contemplating a life of crime. “Crime is not good. If you commit a crime, you will get in here (Kamiti) and probably die.

“If you have talent and education, stick to them and use them wisely. Being in Kamiti is like a footballer suffering a career-ending injury — probably breaking both legs and arms.”

It is 5.30pm and, after a “trophy tour” inside the Kamiti Maximum Prison, his home for more than a decade now, it is time for Teddy and his fellow ball-playing inmates to retreat to their accommodation and wait for their dinner of ugali and beans, served from a surprisingly clean kitchen.

For the moment, the day’s game will be the main topic of discussion in the cells, but soon reality will check in ahead of another long, cold night for the footballers of Kamiti.

And Teddy will once again regret why on July 4, 2000, he violently robbed Mr Mburu Wang’endo of a television set and blanket, items valued at a mere Sh27,500.