Ex-convict, Benjilo, has bemoaned the rampant smoking of weed and sodomy in Ghana’s prisons.

Reverend George Adu Bonsu (real name) said the prisons are supposed to be correctional hubs, but inmates end up being hardened criminals by the time they are released and reintegrated into society.

Benjilo was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug-related offences in April 1997.

Speaking in an interview with Accra-based Okay FM Tuesday, the former businessman alleged that the prison wardens connive with the prisoners to sneak hard drugs into the walls of the prison. He also revealed that the officers also, often turned a blind eye to open homosexual intercourse among inmates.

“Smoking of weed is rampant at the prisons. Even if you want it in sacks, you’ll get it,” Benjilo claimed. “Same-sex encounters are so open.”

He stressed that prison officers must be checked in order to nib the situation in the bud. “This is worrying. It rather destroys the inmates. Even some innocent ones are forced to use the drugs by their senior inmates,” he revealed. “Inmates… have sex with their male partners. This is evil.”

Benjilo decried the unhygienic condition in Ghana’s prisons, revealing that inmates at the Condemned Cells are treated inhumanely.

According to him, anytime an inmate dies, the corpse is placed among the living prisoners at the Condemned Cells until there is a vehicle to convey the body to the mortuary.

“It’s really horrible and disgusting… and smells,” Benjilo stated.