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Ex-jailbird writing book on prison life
2008-04-13 10:58:27
By Mbena Mwanatongoni and Darius Mukiza
At face value 44-four-year old Shabani Malekela looks quite an ordinary person. What with his seemingly simplicity coupled with agility! Prison officials, however, found him different, especially when he was under their care serving 18 years in jail, 15 for armed robbery and two-and-half for breaking jail.
Malekela is assembling facts ready to write a book about his life under chains, serving a long jail term.
I have all the relevant facts. Yes, a prison is everybody`s home, including those who have never committed an offence but found guilty under the law. It is a complication, says the lean but alert ex-jailbird.
The Minister for Home Affairs, Lawrence Masha, feels the ex-prisoner has his basic rights which cannot be infringed. ``Let him go ahead and write the book,`` he said in a telephone conversation recently.
His life in jail started 19 years ago. He was convicted of armed robbery in Iringa where a lower court sentenced him to serve seven years in prison. He appealed.
A higher court heard his appeal and found him guilty of the offence. Eight more years were added to the prior sentence. So Shabani Malekela had to serve 15 years! He was perplexed.
I WAS FRAMED
``I know I was a criminal before. I took a five-year active stint in poaching beginning in 1982.
I poached in Ruaha and Selous Game Reserves. I worked under my brother Mbossa Malekela, and business was really thriving and highly paying.
He owned an arsenal of 12 home-made guns (magobore) and gunpowder.
``Then things took a dramatic turn. I wanted my brother to share with me some of the proceeds so that I could start my own business. He refused.
His crooked advisers told him that he was courting a big risk by allowing me freedom.
He should silence me fearing I could report him to the police who would take legal action against him.``
Suspecting that his brother was behind all that was to befall him later, Shabani says today he has forgiven him. ``During one of my successful escapes from prison, my sick brother told me all about it.
He first confessed that he planned my extinction by presenting false information and some ‘financial rewards’ to people who had to deal with me.
``Mbossa, who died in 1994 in Iringa Municipality, had actually asked for my forgiveness, saying he was the cause of my misfortunes.
He also regretted that he entrusted his businesses to people who had little attachment to him. People who took away the wealth he left behind.``
Briefly discussing his excellent performance in poaching for ivory tusks, he beams: ``You cannot achieve success in that dangerous and tricky business unless you get inside collaboration.
Once you have dished out tempting cash you get close help. The game rangers would be assigned to go west leaving the east for you. It is that simple.``
Prison officials branded Malekela as notorious, dangerous and brilliant.
He held Prisoner Number 167 of the year 2000. He remembers it because it was given to him at Segerea Prison where he spent most of his jail term. He says other prisoner numbers from other prisons were insignificant to him.
``To me it is the last number that matters most,`` he says, almost convinced that his life might have ended there. It was here that he was put under chains to stop him from any further escape attempts, mischief and notoriety.
He was a master of escape plans. Three times he escaped from the fortified prisons by designing plans that were staggering. It was the futile fourth attempt that put him under chains in his sole cell.
``You may be tempted to think I belong to the underworld! I don’t belong there, it is just a coincidence,` he puts it lightly as he briefly remembers his days in three prisons, on which he wants to write a book.
The jailbird does not want to discuss much of the life in prison because he says that will pre-empt the book. He barely gave an outline of what forced him to break prison walls.
Every time he escaped prison he was, caught and punished by an additional jail sentence.
HIS FAMILY FORGOT ABOUT HIM
His nephew Mussa Lawa, a vendor of cellular phone vouchers at Tabata in Dar es Salaam city, remembers how he received the news of his uncle`s freedom.
``It was exactly at 8.30 am in the morning of January 22 this year when I received a phone call from someone who identified himself as Shabani Malekela, my uncle.
I could not contain my sudden happiness that led to tears because the entire family believed Shabani was dead long ago,`` he says.
While serving jail terms Shabani Malekela lost his mother Sijajua Fundi towards the end of 1989 at Isimani Village followed by that of his father Athumani Malekela only last year at Pawaga Village, both in Iringa District. The parents had never heard of his freedom!
He now intends to invest in selling bicycle spares at Igumbiro area in Iringa Municipality where he resides. ``This business will begin only when I get capital from my friend in the city.``
After finishing primary education at Ikengeza Primary School in Isimani Ward in 1980, Shabani was sent to train in medicine at Mvuni Mission Hospital but a year later when he went on annual recess his brother corrupted him into joining the poaching business.
While Malekela served his jail-term, his wife got married to another man, but Malekela does not blame him. He however says he has to take care of a son who has major health problems.
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