Ataa Ayi wants to go to school

The notorious armed robber, Aryee Aryeetey, aka Ataa Ayi who is serving 120 years in prison for various armed robbery offences, says he wants to go back to school.

Ataa Ayi, 39, who has served five years of the sentence at the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons, says he now wants to take advantage of the school in the prison to better his education.

Speaking to The Ghanaian Times newspaper during a graduation ceremony for 12 Junior high school inmates of the prison Thursday, Atta Ayi, a school dropout, said he would avail himself of the opportunity to attain the level provided in the prison school while serving his sentence.

Ataa Ayi left school at class six, and later trained as a mechanic but he said he had now realized that formal education would give him many opportunities and that gave him the motivation to go back to school.

When he was reminded that he has 120 years to serve in prison, he said he was optimistic that if he put up a good behaviour and applied himself zealously to his studies, he might get a presidential pardon to start a new life.

The diminutive convict, apparently humbled by prison life had his hands behind him while talking. Sporting a silver chain with the cross, Ataa Ayi said he wears it at all times to signify a change of heart and his new relationship with Christ.

Asked which profession he might pursue after his education, Ataa Ayi said it was too early to determine what to do now.

Since his conviction in 2005, Ataa Ayi has been shuttling between the Nsawam Prisons and the courts to face a string of other armed robbery charges.