Ghanaian-Romanian musician Wanlov the Kubolor has compared Ghanaian boarding schools to American prisons, saying his experience at Adisadel College made life behind bars in the United States feel “like a hotel.”

Speaking on Prime Morning’s Throwback Thursday segment, Wanlov said the strict and often harsh conditions he faced in secondary school unexpectedly prepared him for life in prison abroad.

“When I went to prison in America, I felt like I was in a hotel because of the kind of hustling I had gone through in Adisadel,” he said, adding that the food and treatment in school were far worse than what he experienced behind bars.

He recalled that some of the meals served in the school’s dining hall were so bad they sometimes contained wall geckos and other unpleasant surprises.

“We used to eat turkey and rice that gave everyone running stomachs the next day because the turkey was expired,” he recounted.

Wanlov noted that although he grew up in a peaceful home where his father never disciplined him harshly, the system in secondary school turned him into someone who began to punish his juniors — behaviour he later realised was not part of his true nature.

Drawing parallels between the two environments, he said the strict schedules, lack of freedom and coping mechanisms in Ghanaian boarding schools mirror life in prison.

“When I got to the American prison, the inmates thought I had been there for years because of how I handled things. But that was just the training I got from secondary school. For me, prison was like a normal holiday,” he said with a chuckle.