By Kiundu Waweru
The Kamiti Maximum Prisonâs yard, cleanly swept and surrounded by manicured gardens, appears serene and peaceful.
Prisoners move about slowly under the watchful eyes of the ever present warders.
One of the prisoners with a cap shielding him from the sun mechanically rolls toward us in a wheelchair.
There is nothing peaceful in his deep-set eyes. Looking bored and disinterested, he asks what our business is.
"We come in peace brother, we need to know how life is for a disabled person serving jail term," we politely state.
It appears we have hit a raw nerve. His hands stiffen and he grasps the handles of the wheelchair so hard that it twitches. His first words are unexpected: "Nikikuja hii jela sikuwa kiwete, (when I came to this jail I was not disabled)."
Joseph Kuria, who is serving a life sentence for robbery with violence, says in 2008, there was a scuffle between the warders and prisoners at Block G that turned ugly.
"During the riots, I fell down and prisoners trampled on me. I fractured my spinal cord," he sadly recalls.
Kuria blames the prison authorities for failing to facilitate an X-Ray ordered by medics to determine if he could be treated or operated.
He says that though he has been to Kenyatta National Hospital countless times, the only medications he gets are painkillers.
The days following the riots saw him languish in the cells in pain.
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