Several years age, the author had a childish fascination with prisons - the
place where one is deprived of everything pleasurable, including 'tee vee'; and one had to live on stale bread and water. Tales out of prison recounted by celebrity inmates such as the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti intensified my mixed feelings of wonder and horror. Later as a student of architecture. I began to wonder what it would be like to design 'cages' for human beings.
The media is rife with reports about the inhuman conditions of our prisons.
Former human rights organisations condemn the dehumanising state of our
prisons. The cells are not only poorly lit and ventilated, they are also overcrowded; sanitary facilities are virtually unheard of; the workshops are under funded as well as under-utilised; and generally death is almost to be preferred to the prospect of incarceration in our prisons.