“I stole a solar panel to enable me learn how to driver because my father didn’t take care of me.” That is how 18-year-old Isaac Nyame ended up at the Sekondi Central prison in the Western Region.
According to the convict, his polygamous father neglected him at the age of three, which abruptly ended his education. He said his father’s excuse was that, he had many children so he was unable to cater for him. This, the young man said was after his dad married another wife to replace his deceased mother. “I am the last child of my father’s children. My father lived in a single room with his two his wives so I slept in the same room with my grandmother. After my mother died, my dad remarried when he got his new job as a labourer on a palm plantation at Deboase.” He told crimecheckghana.
Nyame said life worsened when his mother died as he had to struggle to fend for himself so he engaged in head pottering at bus stations. “I began helping passengers with their luggage when they get off their buses to their destinations and that was my source of livelihood.”
The young man said since he did not get help from his uncles and other relatives to learn how to drive, he was compelled to steal two solar panels to sell to enable him pay for a driving course. Though, he said he succeeded in stealing the items and had one of it sold, one of his uncles who realized what he had done caused his arrest after he took the remaining item to the police. “When I came back home to pick the last solar panel to sell, my uncle had sent it to the police. I was arrested and later arraigned before the Takoradi Circuit court.” He indicated.
CCF’s support
Nyame said he was given an eighteen months jail term at the Takoradi Prison after he couldn’t pay the court fine of One Thousand Two Hundred Ghana cedis.
During a visit to Isaac Nyame at the prison, Crime Check Foundation, CCF, through a philanthropist, Ali Ibrahim paid his fine for his release.
