Sticking to the truth landed her in jail

Irene Namwano, ED Prison Fellowship Uganda (PFU), handed herself to police after embezzling money. PHOTO BY GILLIAN NANTUME

What you need to know:

REFORMED. Irene Namwano failed to meet the refund deadline of the money she had embezzled. The bank lawyer telephoned Central Police Station (CPS) but Namwano walked to CPS and presented herself, writes GILLIAN NANTUME.

That corruption has eaten through the moral fabric of our society, is not news. What is news, though, is the fact that someone can voluntarily confess before a judge that she has embezzled money, fully aware that prison is her next stop. There was no need to hire a lawyer to represent her.
Today, Irene Namwano, the executive director of Prison Fellowship Uganda (PFU), is among that small class of ‘abnormal’ people.
We agreed to meet at 3pm but I arrive at the venue at 1.45pm. Since it is Independence Day, I call her, hoping she will accept to meet me earlier. She asks me to wait until the appointed time.
When we finally meet, she exudes a calm but cautious demeanour. As most ex-convicts testify, if prison teaches one thing, it is to be wary of strangers. By the end of the interview, though, Namwano is more forthcoming and smiles as she talks about her work.
In the early 1990s there were only a handful of commercial banks in the country and Namwano worked with one of them as a teller. She is reluctant to name the bank.
“By 1993, I had worked in the bank for over 10 years. I was 32, single, and had accumulated property from swindling the bank’s money. The CCTV cameras and the processes were manual. I wrote the figures in a cryptic way to elude the auditors.” she says.

The miracle
In late 1992, Namwano had noticed that she had a lump in her left breast. One day, she decided to find a church where the pastor could pray for her.
“I wanted him to pray and I pay him off. I was not a churchgoer. I went to Deliverance Church, Nakasero (now DC Kololo). It was a Sunday and when I got there, the service was already underway, so I joined the congregation.”
After the praise and worship session, a congregant spoke up, saying there was a lady in their midst who had a problem with her left breast.
“It was my first time in that church and I did not know that person. But, those words hit me and I fell down. A power went through me. As I lay on the floor, the pastor, Dr Clement Tibarokoka (now at DC Makerere), said, ‘Let those around that person pray for her.’ People lay their hands on me and began praying. I felt my breast moving up and down. I opened my eyes. I was shocked and confused. I started screaming, asking if God really knew me. I told them I wanted this God who could heal.”

Escape to prison
The euphoria of a spiritual encounter usually fades away when one steps into the real world. The problems and temptation you left outside envelope you as soon as you step out. The difference is in how each one of us juggles them after a spiritual awakening.
For Namwano, the value she attached to money and property melted away. “I wanted to have a good relationship with this God but I knew myself; I was a thief. I was determined, though. Whenever I would get a pen to steal, I would put it down.”
She began to quietly pay back the money she had stolen. She sold her property and devised a cryptic way of writing the figures in the account ledgers. However, after four months she was stuck with a balance of Shs12 million in 1993.
“I decided to set the record straight. As I walked to the chief accountant’s office to confess, I knew I was going to prison. He was shocked! The external auditors had audited the bank accounts the week before and everything had balanced. Now, here I was telling him that Shs12 million was missing from the strong room.”
A few days later, the chief accountant took Namwano to the general manager’s office. Both men meticulously went through the account ledgers but failed to find anomalies. They began to suspect that salvation had made her run mad.
“I showed them the specific days on which I stole, how I had stolen, and how I had covered up the theft. I also showed them how I had been paying back. They gave me two months to refund the Shs12 million.”
Namwano failed to meet the deadline. The bank lawyer telephoned Central Police Station (CPS) and informed them that he was sending Namwano over. She walked to CPS and presented herself.
After listening to her, the police officers telephoned the bank and asked why they wanted Namwano arrested yet she had voluntarily confessed. The general manager told them to let her go, but then, it was too late.
“As they recorded my statement, some policemen mocked me. One said, ‘Look at this Mulokole! You got saved to go to heaven but you are going to hell. Luzira is hell! I began imagining Luzira as a filthy place where people are beaten all the time. However, I felt no fear.”
The next day, Namwano was taken to Mwanga II Court. When her case was read out and the judge asked if Namwano understood English. He ordered for a Lugisu speaker to be brought to interpret for her.
“I confessed and the judge asked me what he should do. I asked him to be lenient since it was my first offence and I had confessed. He handed me a three-year sentence.”
Her family did not know what was happening. Only her pastors – the late Pastor Moses Namisi and Pastor Titus Oundo – knew. Namisi was with her in court and later informed her relatives.

Life in jail
The prison served one meal a day. She described the posho as something with a brownish dirty colour.
“I swore not to eat it. The other prisoners told me I would eat it by force. But was it normal posho? Then, the containers people were eating from…tins blackened with soot! Spiritually, though, it was the best experience. I had enough time to be with God and there was enough field (people who are not born-again) to work with.”
There were no beds. Each inmate had a worn out blanket that served as a mattress and bed sheet. The prison did not have a uniform so one had to wear a dress and underwear they had until they got torn.
“When I washed my dress, I wrapped myself in the blanket until it dried. We shared underwear. A woman was in her periods and blood was flowing down her legs. She did not have knickers. I was not menstruating, so I gave her mine on the understanding that when her periods were done, she would return it. For sanitary pads, we shared pieces we had torn off our blankets. We called them ebigodooli.”
While she says the prison was generally clean, the bad experiences came from the people she was locked with.
“They were from all over the place with all kinds of madness. The language they spoke! The things they did! Sometimes, the wardresses made life hard. I would wake up every night and see a woman seated in a corner, crying for her children. Sometimes, they cried over their harsh sentences.”
PFU counselled and prayed with the inmates. They counselled Namwano and she, in turn, encouraged her fellow inmates.
“Those women have needs that no one can meet. They are frustrated. For some, their husbands have moved on and married again. I remember one time the wardresses banging my window asking if I had raw eggs. An inmate had swallowed poison and they wanted to force her to vomit.”
Today, although the physical conditions in prisons have improved, Namwano, says the fragile psychological state of the prisoners remains the same.
“Friendships are not genuine. There are more killings and when someone goes in for murder, there is a lot of fear and hatred around them and this brings on mental breakdown really fast.”

Her life today
When Namwano walked out of Luzira in 1995, she was homeless. All the tears she had held at bay in prison came flooding out.
“I was stigmatised. I met a former colleague who exclaimed, ‘Irene, I saw you in the (news) papers! You did a very stupid thing. Now, what are you going to do? Others harangued me for my ‘foolishness.’ To survive, I made small bags which I sold in church. I lived with different people.” Eventually, her church hired her as an administrator. She worked for eight years and then, joined PFU in 2009 as a volunteer.
Namwano does not have a steady source of income and the PFU office and her home are fused. She never married but has two sons, one of whom works with her.
“Our ministry involves travelling to villages to check on the children of female convicts. The greatest joy is in taking them to visit their mothers in jail. If we find the children in vulnerable situations, I bring them to Kampala. Right now, I am taking care of 21 children whose mothers were convicted of capital offences.”

Reconciling families
Reconciliation is a lengthy and risky undertaking. One really needs to understand the pain of the victim’s family, especially when there are children involved.
Namwano reminisces about a tough reconciliation she held with a family in Mubende District. A young woman had hacked her elder co-wife (who was their husband’s favourite) to death with a hoe.
“In 2008, on one of my visits to Luzira, this woman approached me and told me about her only child whom she believed was being mistreated. When I reached the village, I introduced myself to the defence secretary. At the carpentry shop where the husband worked, when I mentioned her name, he picked a hammer to hit me.”
The defence secretary held the man’s arm – just in time. Namwano explained that she was just a counsellor who had come to visit him. When he calmed down, he took her to his home. She saw the child – a six-year-old girl who was malnourished.
“I could not talk about her then. A month later, I returned with sugar, salt and soap. On my third visit, I asked the man to let me take the child. He agreed and even allowed me to take the murdered woman’s young son so they would grow up together.”
The children are now in Senior Two. Namwano reconciled the girl with the family of her murdered stepmother and convinced the man to forgive his wife, who was recently released from jail.
Some reconciliations, though, are not successful. Since 2004, PFU has been trying to reconcile the family of a clergyman and their daughter-in-law. The woman has spent 17 years in prison for murdering her husband.
“She is about to be released and all indications are that they might harm her. We have involved different clergy in the reconciliation, in vain.”
The counsellor maintains that if ex-convicts are to avoid crime, the community needs to support them, financially and morally. Otherwise, other criminals will mentor them to commit more crime.

Coming clean
“I decided to set the record straight. As I walked to the chief accountant’s office to confess, I knew I was going to prison. He was shocked! The external auditors had audited the bank accounts the week before and everything had balanced. Now, here I was telling him that Shs12 million missing from the strong room.”

What other ex convicts say

I spent 23 years in prison; 18 of them on death row. Sister Irene visited my children during that time. I have watched her relieve women’s stress by bringing their children to visit them. Justine Nankya

When I was convicted of manslaughter, I spent sleepless nights worrying about my 10-year-old son, my only child. When I talked to Sister Irene, she got him from the village and educated him for six years until I left prison.
Susan Nakabugo

When I was in prison for attempted murder, Irene counselled me. Just looking at her would take away my depression. She asked me to forgive my victim and wanted to reconcile us but it was impossible. She advised me against thinking that exhibiting power in a quarrel is everything. Giida Nikuze