Culture, religion help brothers gain acceptance after 17-year jail term

Oscar Ashivaka drinks a concoction after serving 17 years in prison for robbery with violence alongside his brother Erick Ilusa (centre). Looking on is an elder who served them the drinks meant for cleansing before they interact with community. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard]

Standing under a tree in a secluded corner of their home, Oscar Ashivaka drinks a concoction from a bottle then passes it to his younger brother Erick Ilusa who also takes a sip.

The two brothers, aged 46 and 40, have just completed serving a 17-year sentence at the Kakamega Main Prison for robbery with violence and must be cleansed to gain acceptance in society.

Together with four others, they committed the crime while armed with a gun, pangas and clubs in Sigalagala on July 13, 2009.

In 2011, they were sentenced to death, which was later reduced to a lesser sentence.

“You are the sons of the soil, this is your homeland where your umbilical cords were buried. No one from the home sent you to prison,” said their paternal uncle Joseph Ashiveka who together with three other elders handed the brothers the concoction at their home in Khayega location, Ikolomani, and watched carefully as they drank it.

He went on: “And if fate took you to prison let us count it as bad luck, but if someone from the community or elsewhere employed witchcraft that caused your imprisonment and undue suffering behind bars let that spell return to him in equal measure.”

The elders also ensure the brothers lick some ash-like substance wrapped with a piece of paper. Afterwards, they wash their hands with the remaining concoction - a brownish liquid in two plastic bottles.

The elders tell The Standard that this is the first cleansing ritual the two have to undergo before being allowed to interact with the community. They would, later on, bathe in yet another concoction.

“If they don’t, then they may just pass bad omen from prison to their family and community at large,” says Zephaniah Manase, one of the elders at a home-coming ceremony organised by  Kakamega Prison officers and some religious groups at the brothers' home.

The biggest challenge with the reintegration of former offenders is the community. Very few believe that an inmate can reform.

Many cases of repeat offences start with the community's rejection of ex-offenders,” says Japheth Onchiri, the in-charge of Kakamega Main Prison.

Japheth Onchiri, the in-charge of Kakamega Main Prison. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard]

“We use all avenues to get the community to accept the inmates because a lot of resources go into correcting and rehabilitating them. In the case of the brothers, we sent our welfare team and clerics to talk to the community on their changed ways.”

George Mutebi, the head of welfare at the prison, laid the groundwork for the brothers’ reintegration into the community when their term neared completion well aware that 47 per cent of former convicts return to crime once released.

He talked to their relatives who organised the traditional rights and even talked to the victims of the 2009 crime to forgive the ex-offenders.

And religion being a strong pillar of society, he assembled a team comprising the Kakamega prisons Pentecostal chaplains and nuns from the Catholic church to pick from where tradition left.

Sister Petronilla Lusanji of Kakamega at Sigalagala during the start of the reintegration of Oscar Ashivaka and Erick Ilusa, ex-inmates who were freed after 17 years in prison. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard]

The team counselled the brothers who were freed alongside four others, of how they should get along in society, especially using the carpentry and tailoring skills they acquired in prison.

“We even travelled to their Khayega home (in a staunch Catholic setting) and talked to the locals to remember that all are sinners and they should accept their brothers who have since renounced their bad habits,” says Sister Petronilla Lusanji.

The choice of Sister Lusanji was deliberate rather than random. With 34 years of teaching experience in the Khayega community, the retired Mukumu Girls’ Primary School headteacher has influence in the predominantly Catholic society.

“I talked to them (brothers) and can assure you they have changed,” she says, her eyes sternly trained on our camera lense.

Benbella Oyalo, a volunteer from Jesus Freedom Evangelical ministry that deals with helping prisoners reintegrate, says two challenges hinder former prisoners' integration; community acceptance and shelter.

“Most inmates return home and find their property, including land, sold. So we find them seed money to startup businesses,” he says.

“But if they have land we start off by building them houses and then furnish them like we plan to do with Ashivaka and Ilusa.”

The family of the two brothers kept their share of land in the hope they would be freed. Even when the brothers lost two appeals, in 2012 and 2014, never did the family waver.

The brothers appealed for re-sentencing in 2018 which saw their prison term reduced to 17 years. They got the mandatory remission of a third of their imprisonment which made them be freed last week.

"The elders will now point to them where to build their houses and find them, wives since our father is dead,” says Mike Ambeyi, their younger brother.